Art. XIV.—On the Condition of the Blood after Death from ° 
Snake-Bite, as a probable clue to the further study of 
Zymotic Diseases, and of Cholera especially. By 
GroRGE B. Haurorp, M.D. 
[Read 10th June, 1867.] 
Mr. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN, 
On the 25th of last April I addressed a letter to the 
Editor of The Argus, of which the following is part :— 
“‘ When a person is mortally bitten by the cobra-di-capella, mole- 
cules of living ‘germinal’ matter are thrown into the blood 
and speedily grow into cells, and as rapidly multiply, so that 
in a few hours millions upon millions are produced at the expense, as 
far as I can at present see, of the oxygen absorbed into the blood 
during inspiration ; hence the gradual decrease and ultimate extinc- 
tion of combustion and chemical change in every other part of 
the body, followed by coldness, sleepiness, insensibility, slow 
breathing, and death. 
“‘ The cells which thus render in so short a time the blood unfit to 
support life, are circular, with a diameter on the average of one 
seventeen-hundredth of an inch. They contain a nearly round 
nucleus of one two thousand-eight-hundreth of an inch in breadth, 
which, when further magnified, is seen to contain other still more 
minute spherules of living ‘germinal’ matter. In addition to this, 
the application of magenta reveals a minute coloured spot at some 
part of the circumference of the cell. This, besides its size, dis- 
tinguishes it from the white pus, or lymph corpuscle. 
‘Thus, then, it would seem that, as the vegetable cell requires for 
its growth inorganic food and the liberation of oxygen, so the animal 
cell requires for its growth organic food and the absorption of 
oxygen. Its food is present in the blood, and it meets the oxygen in 
the lungs ; thus, the whole blood becomes disorganised, and nothing 
is found after death but dark fluid blood, the fluidity indicating its 
loss of fibrine, the dark colour its want of oxygen, which it readily 
absorbs on exposure after death. 
“Let it not be thought that microscopic particles are unable 
to produce such great and rapid changes. It is well known, and 
I have frequently timed it with my class, that a teaspoonful of 
human saliva will, when shaken with a like quantity of decoction of 
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