Venoms : venomous animals and antivenomous serum-therapeutics / by A. Calmette; translated by Ernest E. Austen.

  • Calmette, A. (Albert), 1863-1933.
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Venoms : venomous animals and antivenomous serum-therapeutics / by A. Calmette; translated by Ernest E. Austen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    sufficient to retain the prey and to cause it to pass from front to rear towards the oesophagus, by a series of alternate antero-posterior movements and analogous lateral ones. By means of these move- ments, which are participated in by the upper and lower maxillary bones, the palatines, mandibles or inter-maxillaries, and the ptery- goids, the animal in a manner draws itself over its prey like a glove, since the arrangement of its dentition does not admit of mastication. Fig. 13.—Arrangement of the Scales of the Head in one of THE Non-poisonous Colubridce (Ptyas mucosus). (After Sir Joseph Payrer.) a, Rostral scale; b, anterior frontals; b, posterior frontals ; c, vertical; d, occipi- tals; e, supra-ciliaries; f, temporals; l, m, nasals; n, loreals, or frenals ; o, anterior oculars, or prte-orbitals; p, posterior oculars, or post-orbitals; Q, supra-labials; g, naedian infra-labial; h h, lateral infra-labials ; i k, mentals. The enormous extensile power of the mouth and oesophagus thus enables snakes to swallow animals, the size of which is several times in excess of their own diameter. Deglutition is slow and painful, but the gastric and intestinal juices are so speedy in action, that the digestion of the most