204 C. J. MARTIN. 
IV.—After Three Hours’ Sojourn in Serum. 
Number of Colonies after 
15 hours. 18 hours. | 40 hours. 
Normal serum i — | countless 
19 | 
Venom serum ...| 2420 | 4244 | countless 
Other agents which cause destruction among the blood corpuscles 
would appear to produce a similar result. Gottstein’ found that 
the injection of pyrogallol and acetyl-phenyl-hydrazin into the — 
circulation of animals naturally immune against definite micro 
organisms rendered them susceptible to invasion. Under the 
same circumstances pathogenic germs which locally affect the 
organism are capable of spreading throughout the whole body. 
ACTION OF VENOM ON THE BLoop VESSELS. 
The situation in which the poison is injected is always the seat 
of some edema. On cutting into the edematous tissues, a serous 
fluid, more or less stained with hemoglobin, escapes. This - 
itself is an indication of some alteration in the walls of the blood 
vessels in the vicinity of the injection, by which the normal 
transudation processes are affected. Rattlesnake venom produces 
changes which are of a similar nature, but in which the degree of 
damage to the endothelial lining of the vessels is much greater. 
That this venom was capable of playing considerable havoc with 
the cells lining the blood vessels, was demonstrated by War 
Mitchell and Reichert.2. These authors moistened the mesentery 
of animals with Crotalus venom and observed under the microscope 
the rapid formation of extensive capillary hemorrhages. © 
few minutes the whole mesentery became by the coalescence of 
the numerous hemorrhagic foci absolutely infiltrated with 
I have repeated these experiments, using Pseudechis Y , 
and although the action of this poison is less rapid than isha: 
case in Mitchell and Reichert’s experiments the results Bas 
identical. The mesenteries of cats and dogs were od unt 
the microscope so as to obtain a good view of the circulation © 
1 “ Deutsche Med. Woch., 1890, 24. 2 Loc. cit. 
