THEIR NATURE AND EFFECTS.
of death, and the deadening of the nerves is simply the result of the excessive nervous discharges that have taken place through them. Thus, though the trunk or extremity of the nerve may he found paralysed, this 4oes not prove that paralysis was the cause of death, or that it was the direct result of the action of the poison on the nerve.
In this direction another point must he taken into account. One of the most characteristic features of cobra-poisoning in the human subject, is paralysis of the legs. The patient is unable to walk or to stand, though his arms as yet have not experienced any loss of power. Now it would be difficult to suppose that this was due to the terminations of the motor nerves of the legs becoming paralysed, while those of the arms remained unaffected. It is much more probable that the spinal cord is becoming paralysed ; one of the first effects of which would be that it would lose the power of maintaining the tone aud necessary contraction in the rhany complex groups of muscles on which the upright posture is dependent.
But in cobra-poisoning in dogs, paralysis of the hind-legs without the fore, is rarely seen. In the vast majority of cases, power is lost simultaneously in all four members. As a rule, in those cases in which it has been noticed that the hind-legs have suffered first, the animal has been bitten on the hind-leg, which would always cause a certain amount of lameaess, and diffi-
