PHYSIOLOGICAL ACTION OF VENOM OF BLACK SNAKE. 157 
scopic examination of the kidneys has shown the tubules to be 
completely blocked with haemoglobin crystals. 
Haemoglobinuria is a frequent symptom with animals of other 
species, except with minimal or sub-minimal doses. 
Professor Halford and Dr. Ralph many years ago noticed 
changes in the corpuscular elements of the blood of animals 
which had died from the bite of the Australian tiger-snake 
(Hoplocephalus curtus). Their attention was particularly drawn 
to the enormous number of leucocytes together with granular 
debris present under these circumstances. They described the 
leucocytes as frequently heaped together like masses of grapes. 
Halford also described some large transparent nucleated cells 
which he found in the blood of animals eight to twelve hours 
subsequent to death from snake-bite, but which were not present 
immediately after that event. Halford at one time attached 
considerable importance to these cells, which are indeed swollen 
leucocytes, the condition of which must be attributed to post- 
Mortem phenomena. ‘They are, moreover, as was ‘first pointed 
out by Dr. Ralph, of Kew, Victoria, also seen in the blood of 
animals poisoned by prussic acid, when it is examined at a similar 
interval after death and cannot therefore be considered as patho- 
gnomonic of snake poisoning. 
On examining the blood of animals, immediately subsequent to 
death from the injection of Pseudechis poison I have, except in 
those cases which have succumbed within a few hours after the 
injection, always found increase in the number of leucocytes and 
the occasional gathering together of these in grape like masses. 
(¢)—Observations on the Hone S corpuscles after injection of 
nom 
To obtain a measure of reg ‘Wan to which the red cells are 
_ destroyed, and also of the progress of the leucocytes, under the 
influence of Pseudechis poison, I have made a series of observations 
: ~ the number of both the red and the white corpuscles present 
in the circulating blood before, and at different periods subsequent 
to the injection of the poison. : 
