Condition of Blood after Death from Snake-bite. 271 
Art. XX.—Further Observations on the Condition of the 
Blood after Death from Snake-Bite. By Guorce B. 
-HALForD, M.D., Professor of Anatomy, Physiology, and 
Pathology in the University of Melbourne. 
[Read 14th October, 1867.] 
Mr. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN, 
Since I had last the honour to bring this subject under the 
notice of this Society, I have made numerous experiments 
on dogs and cats, and in all, so far as regards the presence of 
the foreign cell, with similar results. A multitude of con- 
jectures crowd round the origin of this cell and the interpre- 
tation to be put upon its presence ; but I shall this evening 
confine myself to what I have been hitherto able to make 
out of its life, and of the passage of the poison from the 
mother to the embryo. 
Nothing, perhaps, is more difficult and tedious than to 
trace the growth of a microscopic particle, but I will endea- 
vour in a few words, and by the help of. diagrams and 
microscopic preparations, to explain all | have been enabled 
to learn of this important subject. Blood, soon drawn from 
- an animal bitten by a snake contains a larger amount of 
nebulous or finely granular matter than is usually seen. 
After the lapse of one hour this nebulous matter is much 
increased in quantity, lying in the intervals of the red cor- 
puscles, and presently breaking up into small masses, out of 
which the cell is gradually evolved. In two hours after the 
bite the cells may be seen in great numbers, but very 
indistinct. From this time every further microscopic obser- 
vation shows them in great abundance, and from the sixth to 
the twelfth hour they may be seen in perfection, macula and 
nucleus included. Whilst this is taking place the nebulous 
matter disappears. The nebulous matter may, therefore, be 
regarded as the germinal matter out of which the cells are 
formed. At this time the cell-wall is extremely delicate, the 
macula very plain as a bright particle, and the nucleus either 
single, reniform, double, triple, or multiple. It would appear 
the cells are then increasing in number by division of their 
nuclei, and minute particles having the vibratory movement 
of molecules in fluid, may be seen between the nucleus and 
cell-wall. On one occasion | watched for upwards of half an 
hour a constant revolution within the cell of a particle corres- 
