PHYSIOLOGICAL ACTION OF VENOM OF BLACK SNAKE. 275 
[TX —ComparRIsON OF EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS WITH THE 
Symptoms oF Pseudechis PoisonInc In Man. 
In comparing the results obtained by these experiments on 
animals, with the clinical symptoms manifested by patients bitten 
by this snake, the important fact which I have endeavoured to 
emphasise, viz.:—that the symptoms depend to a large extent upon 
the rapidity with which the venom reaches the circulation, must 
be carefully borne in mind. If this is remembered, I think it will 
be obvious that every observation from experiments on the lower 
animals has its counterpart among the symptoms of some cases of 
snake bite. Corpuscles are to some extent broken up, for I have 
myself found hemoglobin in the urine. There are numerous 
records of cases where the urine has been stated to be bloody, but 
Tam not aware that the reporter has taken the trouble to ascertain 
whether the colouration of the urine was due to hemoglobin or to 
corpuscles. In the cases which I myself examined, there were no 
red cells at all, but only pigment. The positive phase of the 
effect of Psendechis venom on the coagulability of the blood of 
animals, has been shown to be produced only when the venom 
reaches the circulation rapidly, as when intravenously introduced, 
or injected subcutaneously in large doses. In cases of snake bite 
* man, such conditions are very rarely satisfied, for the poison 
18 usually deposited in the subcutaneous tissue and not directly 
into a vein, and in the former case is, relatively to the size of the 
Victim, not sufficient in quantity to produce thrombosis. There 
exist, however, records of cases where the individual has died in 
less than half an hour, and in one of these cases there was a white 
{ante-mortem) clot found in the heart at the autopsy. In this 
case death was very possibly due to intravascular clotting. . 
Although the conditions are unfavourable for the manifestation 
of a Pronounced positive phase of coagulability which would 
®ceasion intravascular clotting, the after negative phase is always 
more or less present. It has long been known that the blood 
stter death from the bite of this snake, clots only feebly, or else 
