Am .  Jou  r.  Pharm .  \ 
August,  1897.  j 
Heloderma  Suspectum,  Cope. 
395 
in  frogs  showed  that  the  central  nervous  system,  the  brain  and  the 
spinal  cord  were  first  affected  by  it,  but  afterwards  it  also  attacked 
the  termini  of  the  motor-nerves  in  the  muscles,  producing  a  com- 
plete curare  effect,  while  the  irritability  of  the  muscular  tissues  re- 
mained unaffected. 
In  the  heart  of  a  frog  observed  in  situ  without  opening  the 
thorax,  the  rate  of  pulsation  after  subcutaneous  injection  of  the 
poison  was  observed  at  first  to  increase  a  little,  then  gradually  to  de- 
crease until  it  stopped  entirely.  Shortly  after  the  heart  had  stopped, 
or  while  the  auricles  were  still  beating  slightly,  the  ventricle  (after 
opening  the  thorax)  usually  seemed  contracted  and  stiff,  surely  in- 
dicating a  direct  effect  of  the  poison  on  the  muscular  tissues. 
Weir  Mitchell  and  Reichert  have  not  observed  any  local  effect  of 
the  heloderma  venom.  Probably  this  depended  upon  the  hasty 
death  of  the  animals  on  whom  they  experimented.  In  several  ex- 
periments on  frogs,  I  have  discovered  oedema,  small  extravasations, 
discoloring  and  fragility  of  the  muscular  tissues,  etc.,  at  the  place  Of 
injection  (mostly  in  the  walls  of  the  lymph- sinus  of  the  thorax  and 
abdomen).  In  a  rat  I  once  observed  a  greenish-brown  discoloring 
of  the  tissue  around  the  place  of  injection.  Furthermore,  in  many 
accounts  of  former  experiments  on  animals,  and  also  in  accounts  of 
cases  in  which  people  have  been  bitten  (Shufeldt,  Stein),  we  read  of 
more  or  less  marked  local  effects  of  the  poison.  Local  gangrene 
is,  however,  not  mentioned,  and,  as  a  rule,  the  local  effects  have 
soon  disappeared. 
On  mucous  membranes  (the  mucous  membrane  of  the  stomach  and 
the  conjunctiva)  the  heloderma  poison  does  not  seem  to  have  any 
injurious  effect. 
By  means  of  some  special  experiments,  I  have  furthermore  tried 
to  discover  how  the  poisonous  part  of  the  heloderm  saliva  is  affected 
by  alcohol  and  boiling.  If  to  the  poisonous  fluid,  which  has  been 
rendered  a  trifle  sour  by  the  admixture  of  acetic  acid,  alcohol  is 
added  in  excess,  all  the  poison  may  be  precipitated,  in  case  the  pro- 
cess is  carefully  carried  out.  If  the  alcohol  is  then  filtered  off  from 
the  poison  and  allowed  to  evaporate,  and  if  the  residues,  after  the 
evaporation  of  the  alcohol  are  dispersed  in  acid  water,  the  liquid  thus 
obtained  is  uneffective.  Thus,  poisonous  alkaloid  substances,  which 
ought  to  have  dissolved  in  alcohol  and  then  in  acid  water,  were  not 
to  be  found. 
