366 DR. EVANS ON THE POISONED SPINES OF THE WEEVER FISH. 
at once. It appears, as the fishermen state, that the poison 
loses its effect soon after death. With one specimen of 
venom I got most contradictory results which were due to 
my using a batch of 100 fish which were not quite fresh 
although. they had been kept on ice. 
The effect on birds is interesting, in as much as a smacksman 
has related to me how he has seen Gulls fall into the sea as if 
struck dead when he has thrown live Weevers overboard to 
them. With Guinea-pig corpuscles two drops of 50 % Weever 
poison were added to one tube containing 2 C. C. emulsion, 
and to two other tubes the same quantity of Weever poison 
+ in one tube some normal serum and in another serum 
heated for an hour at 62 C. In all three tubes marked 
haemolysis took place ; in the controls none. 
We see here again the presence of endocomplements in the 
Guinea-pig corpuscles, and we had a slightly greater action 
with the presence of heated serum than with unheated serum. 
A similar experiment was made with Sheep’s blood. In 
this case with 5 % emulsion and two drops 50 % Weever 
poison, there was advanced haemolysis, and with the same 
quantity of poison with both normal serum and serum heated 
for an hour at 62° C. there was complete haemolysis after 
two hours in the incubator at 37 0 C. We have here a very 
marked example of the amboceptor of Weever poison com- 
bining with the endocomplement of the Sheep corpuscles 
resulting in rapid haemolysis. The increased haemolysis with 
the added serum was not affected by heating to 62° C. A similar 
experiment with two minims of Weever poison gave the follow- 
ing results, a. with blood corpuscles only, haemolysis in one 
hour ; b. with heated and, c. unheated serum, complete 
haemolysis in half an hour. 
With human blood we find that there is haemolysis of the 
washed corpuscles without the addition of serum. But 
unless the venom is quite fresh one drop of the 50 % solution 
is not sufficient to produce haemolysis, although two drops 
suffice. It seemed important in the light of Briot s investi- 
gations previously referred to to be quite sure of this. The 
following experiment was very conclusive. Six tubes, each 
