PHYSIOLOGICAL ACTION OF VENOM OF BLACK SNAKE. 191 
minute the animal died with complete thrombosis of the whole 
venous system. Another portion of the precipitate was dissolved 
in ‘2% HCl, and pepsin added, and kept at 40° C. overnight. In 
the morning there was a precipitate of nuclein in the vessel, 
From experiments with ‘‘tissue-fibrinogen” which I have quoted 
in this paper, it will I think be obvious, that if by the action of 
this agent, the coagulability of the blood is to be so increased as 
to cause intravascular clotting, it must first be present in the 
blood in some quantity. Even when large areas of cells are 
disintegrated, as in pneumonia, the rate of absorption is so slow, 
that this condition is not usually fulfilled, though Wright has 
suggested that it may explain the increased coagulability of the 
blood which has been observed in this disease. The more or less 
extensive ante-mortem clots which are so frequently found in the 
right ventricle after death from pneumonia, are probably to be 
explained in the same way. 
It would be quite otherwise, were the nucleo-albumens the 
product of disintegration of cells in, or in proximity to the blood 
stream, as the corpuscles or the endothelial cells lining the whole 
of the vascular system. In such a case the conditions would be 
practically the same as if these toxic agents were injected from 
without. 
We have already seen that in disintegration of the red corpuscles _ 
by the venom, we may have an available source of nucleo-albumens. 
Moreover, as I shall point out in the next section of this paper, 
the venom also exerts a destructive action upon the endothelium 
_ of the whole vascular system, whence a possible additional supply 
_ Of these proteids may be derived. 
Tam not aware of any instance in which sudden death from 
thrombosis of an extensive character, has in the human subject 
followed the bite of one of our Australian colubrines. To occasion 
neg an event it would be necessary for the poison to be injected 
— sly ina very considerable dose, or else for it to be 
into a vein. The most rapid death of which I have 
