On the nature of snake-poison / [Sir Joseph Fayrer].

  • Fayrer, Joseph, Sir, 1824-1907.
Date:
[1884]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the nature of snake-poison / [Sir Joseph Fayrer]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    1 10 nearly always causes wide dilatation in the earlier stages of the poisoning. Salivation is a constant symptom of cobra- poisoning ; it is exceedingly rare in daboia poisoning. “ The effect of cobra-poison in the blood is not very great, Sanious discharges are rare, albuminuria has not been seen, and recovery is striking and complete when it takes place. In daboia-poisoning, on the other hand, sanious discharges are the rule. Albuminuria is usual should the victim live any time; and, after the nerve symptoms have passed away, the subject has to go through a period of blood- poisoning little, if at all, less dangerous than the primary symptoms ; we have, in addition, the greater local mischief caused by daboia-poisoning, and the greater power it has of destroying the coagulation of the blood. “ The physiological properties of daboia-poison undergo great change by its being heated to 100C. in solution, losing the power of producing primary convulsions, whereas cobra- poison remains unaltered. Daboia-poison kills birds at once in convulsions, whereas, with cobra-poison, unless the poison has been directly injected into the circulation, death occurs only after paralysis. “ Lastly, amphibia recover from an amount of daiboia- poison that would be necessarily fatal in the case of cobra- poison.” Without unreservedly accepting Dr. Wall’s conclusions, I regard them as an able summary of the action of different kinds of snake-poisons, and they confirm the deadly nature of Indian as compared with European snake- poison. The local effects of the poison are partial paralysis of the bitten part, pain, infiltration, swelling, inflammation, and ecchymosis round the spot where the poison has been introduced, and sometimes in other and distant parts, and, if the animal survive for some hours, infiltration and incipient decomposition of the tissues and haemorrhagic discharges. The general symptoms are depression, faint- ness, cold sweats, nausea, vomiting, exhaustion, lethargy, unconsciousness. Dogs vomit, and are profusely salivated. They present an appearance as if the hair were “ staring.” As the poisoning proceeds, paralysis appears in the limbs, commencing gener- ally in the hinder parts, with a tendency to creep over the whole body, involving the muscles of deglutition, and loss of co-ordinating power of muscles of locomotion. Albumi- nuria (especially in viperine poisoning), haemorrhagic dis-