INDIAN SNAKE POISONS,
a large quantity of coagulable purple blood-like fluid. In addition to this effusion the whole of the neighbouring vessels are intensely injected, which injection gradually fades as the site of the poisoned part is receded from, so that a bright scarlet ring surrounds the purple area, and this in its turn gradually fades into the normal colour of the neighbouring tissue. At the margin, also, the purple blood-like effusion is replaced by a pinkish effusion, which wells out as the incision is made. This effusion of pinkish fluid may often be traced up in the tissues surrounding the vessels which conveyed to the system the poison they had absorbed from the part. In one case, in which the victim was bitten on the hand, the effusion from the veins could be traced as high as the elbow. These are the essential characters of the local effects produced by cobra-bite; but they may vary a good deal in degree, depending, probably, upon the amount of poison injected and the time the subject lived after being bitten. It has been asserted that the nature of these local changes in snake-bite is merely a hsemorrhage into the tissues from vessels that have been divided by the fangs of the snake, with effusion of blood from the vessels around. But though it is true that sometimes a very small amount of blood may be found at the site of the punctures, yet it is clear that this explanation will not account either for the great pain that is felt in the part, or for the intense injection of the neighbouring vessels. To determine the
