( ill ) 
XXIV.— O/z the Mode of Growth, Reproduction^ 
and Structure of the Poison-Fangs in Ser- 
pents. 
By Dr Knox, F. R. S. E. 
Conservator of tlie Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, 
Edinburgh. 
(Read Mth Janiiarij 1824.) 
A-T an early period of my researches into comparative 
anatomy, I v/as led to examine with considerable care the 
anatomy of a class of animals, dangerous and terrible in 
their nature, and against which man has declared perpetual 
war. Dwelling for a long time in a country abounding 
with these reptiles, and where, during a great portion of 
the year, by infesting our gardens, houses, and fields, they 
formed a subject of daily conversation, I was naturally led 
to inquire into their structure, and even, so far as was 
practicable, to pay attention to their natural history ; but 
my researches were chiefly of a practical nature, and di« 
rected more towards detecting the presence of those organs 
which have procured for their possessors the hatred of every 
living animal. Minute and careful dissections, performed 
lately, have shewn me, that a few facts, in the anatomy and 
physiolog}^ of the poisonous teeth of serpents, had escaped 
