1C VI 
Able FONTANA on the 
^ifordered the (kin, but did not prove fatal. The American 
poifon, on the contrary, never produces any local difeafe, as I 
obferved in making the experiments related above, but leaves 
the wounded parts as it found them. This conftitutes an eflen- 
tial difference between thefe two poifons. 
I clipped off the hair, with a pair of fciffars, from a part of 
the thigh of a fmall Guinea-pig, and fcratched the fkin lightly 
with a file. There was no viiible difcharge of blood ; but cer- 
tain fmall red fpots and a moiftnefs appeared on the fkin. I 
bathed the part with a little drop of the poifon diffolved in wa- 
ter. In ten minutes the animal gave figns of convulfions ; a 
little after it fell down motionlefs, except convulfions, which 
it had now- and- then more or lefs ftrong, and it died in twenty- 
minutes. The part of the fkin where the poifon had been ap- 
plied was not at all altered. This experiment was attended with 
the fame fuccefs on two other Guinea-pigs, and on a fmall rab- 
bit ; all the three dying in lefs than twenty-feven minutes with 
very evident figns of convulfions. I wifhed to try if the 
larger animals could refill this poifon, when only applied to the 
fcratched fkin ; and therefore, with the point of a lancet, I 
wounded, very lightly, in many places, the fkin of a large rab- 
bit, having firft cleared the part of the hair, and then I bathed 
the wounded places with feveral drops of the poifon. After fif- 
teen minutes it became lefs brifk than before, and (hook its head 
now-and-then, as if it could not hold it up without difficulty; 
but in twenty minutes more it became as lively as at firft. I re- 
peated the experiment on another fomewhat fmaller rabbit : in 
ten minutes it gave the fame kind of (hakes with its head, and 
could hardly go or fupport itfelf on its feet ; but after other 
twenty minutes it was as lively as ever, 
I fhaved off about an inch of the fkin of a pretty large rabbit ; 
a little blood appeared although the flefh did not fe$m to be cut ; 
I put about three drops of the poifon on the place : in fix 
minutes the rabbit feemed very faint : after another minute it 
fell down as if dead ; it fcarce breathed, and was at times con- 
vulfed ; but in lefs than forty -fix minutes it recovered the ufe of 
