1881.1 Poisons of certain Indian Venomous Snakes. 337 



attempted ; showing that the mere presence of the poison in the blood, 

 even in sufficient quantity to kill, is not capable of producing directly 

 a physiological effect. On the other hand, to prevent grave miscon- 

 ception, it should be stated that it is quite possible to save life by 

 excision of the bitten part, if it be done sufficiently quickly to prevent 

 any considerable absorption. 



The symptoms once developed follow one another with great rapi- 

 dity. In man a feeling of intoxication appears to be the first consti- 

 tutional effect of the poison. It is very generally complained of, but 

 not universally, as it would require some intelligence on the victim's 

 part to mention it. It is not possible to get evidence of a purely sub- 

 jective condition in animals. 



In man the next symptom is loss of power in the legs. There is 

 first staggering, then inability to support the body, and finally there is 

 complete incapacity to move the lower limbs . At the same time there 

 is scarcely any loss of power in the arms, which may remain com- 

 pletely under the influence of the will. The exact nature of the 

 action of cobra poison on the nervous system is, however, a very 

 difficult subject. Sir Joseph Fayrer and Dr. Brunton, in their 

 valuable series of papers on the subject, maintain that though the 

 greater part of the nervous system is affected, yet the terminations of 

 the motor nerves suffer especially, and in a very marked manner. 

 They base their reasoning on the results produced by experiments in 

 which the excitability of two nerves of the same animal is tested, one 

 of which has been subjected to the action of the poison, and the other 

 has been kept from the contact with the poisoned blood by the limb to 

 which it is distributed being ligatured, the nerve, however, being left 

 intact. These experiments I have repeated with, however, some dif- 

 ferences in the arrangements, with the result that though the poisoned 

 limb lost its excitability to a very much greater extent than the non- 

 poisoned limb, yet the spinal cord, as long as it was capable of sti- 

 mulation at all, could convey stimulation to the poisoned and un- 

 poisoned nerve, but that the excitability of the cord was exceedingly 

 quickly lost. These results would imply that the terminations of the 

 motor nerves only suffered, pari passu, with the cord itself, and that 

 there is no special elective affinity for the endings of the nerves. Nor 

 are the results of the experiments of Sir Joseph Fayrer and Dr. 

 Brunton incompatible with this view. For when one thigh of the 

 subject of the experiment was ligatured, and the other was poisoned, 

 when the cord was excited by a current, the stimulus had to be trans- 

 mitted to the non-poisoned leg through the trunk of the nerve which 

 was unaffected; whereas on the other leg it had to overcome the 

 resistance induced by the paralysing poison. There is no need to 

 suppose a special effect of the poison on the ends of the motor nerves ; 

 the different lengths of the trunks affected would account for a con- 



