372 Drs. Brunton and F'ayrer on the Nature and Action [June 19, 



a poison injected into the jugular vein was distributed throughout the 

 circulation in nine seconds. Claude Bernard found that a saturated 

 solution of sulphuretted hydrogen introduced into the jugular vein of a 

 dog began to be eliniinated from the lungs in three seconds, and when 

 injected into the femoral vein of the same dog in six seconds. 



"We have neither seen nor heard of any case of snake-poisoning, in 

 man or the lower animals, so rapid (though in some Dr. Fayrer has ob- 

 served the first symptoms in a few seconds) as to justify the conclusion 

 that poisoning had occurred otherwise than through the medium of the 

 circulation. 



Some preliminary experiments made in England by one of us (Dr. 

 Brunton) with the poison before it had undergone decomposition seemed 

 to show that it produced paralysis of the spinal cord, of the ends of the 

 motor nerves, and of the muscles themselves. The experiments which 

 we made together with the same poison a few months afterwards, as 

 well as with other samples of poison sent from India, have not given 

 concordant results. "We therefore propose to postpone the considera- 

 tion of this subject to a future paper, and to confine ourselves at present 

 to the mode in which death is produced by the poison, especially in 

 mammals. 



Somatic death, according to Bichat, may commence in the brain, lungs, 

 or heart ; but the experiments of Fontana and Legallois show that so 

 long as circulation and respiration are kept up the body remains alive 

 although the head be absent. The brain is only necessary to life, 

 inasmuch as the respiratory movements cease when it is removed or 

 destroyed, either mechanically or by the action of a poison upon it. The 

 causes of somatic death are thus limited to failure of the circulation and 

 failure of the respiration. 



The long continuance of the cardiac pulsations after apparent death 

 (Expts. I., III., IV., V., IX., X.) excludes failure of the circulation as the 

 usual cause of death ; and we are thus brought by exclusion to regard death 

 caused by the bite of a cobra, or by its poison introduced into the body 

 in any other way, as death from failure of the respiration, or, in other 

 words, death by asphyxia. The truth of this view is Avell illustrated by 

 the following experiments *, which show that the vitality of the heart may 

 be retained for a considerable time if the respiration is kept up. It 

 shows also that the convulsions which have been remarked by B-ussell 

 and all subsequent observers as almost always preceding death are not 

 due so much to the action of the poison itself on the nervous centres, as 

 that they depend on the irritation which is produced in them by the 

 venosity of the blood. 



* Excepting those cases in which the poison is injected into a large vein, such as the 

 jugular, and causes sudden arrest of the heart's action. 



