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REMAEKS ON SOME EXPERIMENTS WITH SNAKE-VENOM.- 
By De. Walter Frei. 
(Communicated by De. A. Theilee, C.M.A., F.R.S.S.Af.). 
(Read March 17, 1909.) 
The experiments were undertaken : (1) In order to ascertain whether 
certain South African snakes, about which there were doubts till now, are 
harmless or poisonous (specially Opistoglypha) : (2) To study the 
pathological-anatomical lesions provoked by the venom of South African 
snakes. 
1. Aglypha.I 
An emulsion of both maxillary glands in normal saline solution of 
Boodon lineatus, the brown house-snake, was injected subcutaneously 
into a rabbit and a guinea-pig. 
Besult. — No local, nor general pathological alterations appeared. 
With another portion of the emulsion experiments for haemolysis were 
tried with original human blood and horse blood, previously washed with 
normal saline solution. 
No haemolysis took place within 8 hours' stay in the incubator. 
2. Opistoglypha. 
(a) A specimen of Leptodira hotambma, red-lip snake, was forced to 
bite the ear of a guinea-pig. 
As no symptoms made their appearance, the snake was killed and 
an emulsion of both maxillary glands injected into the same guinea-pig 
subcutaneously. After 5J hours the guinea-pig was found dead with 
its mouth full of forage. 
* Paper read before the Transvaal Biological Society, October 26, 1908. 
t From a toxicological standpoint the classification of the snakes in : 1. Aglypha, 
2. Opistoglypha, 3. Proteroglypha, 4. Solenoglypha, is the most satisfactory one, as 
will be shown in the course of the paper. 
