206 
9'4°- Administered several strong electric shocks. It 
dischaiged urine violently and shortly after died, probably from 
the shocks. J 
I .—A toad sound and unopened, had a normal beat of 2a in is 
seconds. 0 
At 
2 mms. Antiarts was injected. 
IO *37> 
10-42. 
>> >> 
»» » 
Beats 21 
20 
18 
J ? 
/* oidei to see if the poison was destroyed by heat some 
Antiavis latex was boiled in a test-tube. It emitted a srnell of 
burnt india-rubber. 
Injected three mms. into the thigh of a toad at 9-25. At 9-45 
toad much affected. It does not move, but lies on its back, and 
does not attempt to recover itself. The pupils are contracted*. 
Theie aie no spasms, but a complete loss of motor power in the 
legs, the fore-legs first. It died at 10 a.m. 
This experiment shows, I think, that boiling greatly increases 
the rapidity of the action. All writers state that the Sakais boil 
the decoction till it becomes thick before using it. 
Newbold (Trans. Roy. Soc. 1837, p. 427) in describing the poi- 
son, gives an account of inoculating a pup with one of the arrows 
of the Aborigines, the effects of which closely resemble those in 
my experiment on the dog. It was struck in the right hip, the 
arrow penetrating only a quarter of an inch. Six minutes later 
“ it demonstrated signs of uneasiness, yawned and moaned In 
“ 10 \ minutes it grew sick, vomited the contents of the stomach 
“ and continued at intervals bringing up small quantities of a 
“ wh j te frothy liquid. In 16 minutes the muscles of the chest 
“ and diaphragm were powerfully excited ; slight convulsive 
“ Switchings in the legs. In 20 minutes it fell on its side, foamed 
“ j^ch at the mouth, again got on its legs and struggled violent- 
ly v as to S et loose. In 23 minutes it was still foaming at the 
mouth and had an involuntary alvine evacuation, then fell 
down after painful retching” and continued .this, becoming 
gradually weaker till, in 37 minutes, it died strongly convulsed. 
The post-mortem examination showed a frothy saliva-like 
fluid in the stomach, the gall-bladder distended with bile, the in- 
testines unusually pale. In the cavity of the thorax on each 
side were several drachms of serous fluid. In this experiment 
as apparently in others by Newbold, the action of the poison was 
very slow, probably on account of the small amount of the drug 
nrjected, otherwise the action was quite similar. 
One more experiment I made I will mention. A tadpole was 
put into a watch-glass of water, and a little of the Antiaris 
latex mjected into the tail by a prick. Under the microscope 
the blood-vesseles could be seen to become intensely congest- 
ed, and the circulation in the tail gradually ceased, the capil- 
laries of the tail becoming choked with corpuscles. It appear- 
to me that this was due to the contraction of the capillaries. 
