Snake venoms : their physiological action and antidote / by George Lamb.

  • Lamb, George, 1869-1911.
Date:
[1903]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Snake venoms : their physiological action and antidote / by George Lamb. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    and lies down unable to move. The breathing still continues. Thus one sees in all such experiments a most striking and typical picture, the animal, be it bird or mamma], mouse or horse, lying on the ground completely unable to stir, the breathing still going on, and the saliva trickling from its mouth. This, however, does not last long. The paralysis soon involves the respiratory centres, gasping in the search for air becomes marked, and the scene is closed with the total cessation of respiration. Just before this, however, there may be slight general convulsive movements, due to the accumula- tion of carbonic acid gas in the system. Mark you, there has been no word of failure of the heart, there has been no diminution in the strength of the pulse. After the breathing has completely stopped, if one opens the chest, one sees the heart beating away as if nothing had happened. I have observed this beating go on for twenty minutes to half an hour after the thorax has been laid open, and gradually to become weaker and weaker, and ultimately to cease altogether. As well as this action on the central nervous system, cobra venom has got an action on the blood, which, however, is of secondary importance to the action on the nervous system. In the first place, it lias a marked destructive action on the red corpuscles. In viro the effect of this is not very apparent, but in vitro a most beautiful demonstration of this hemolytic effect can be obtained. If, however, a sample of blood be taken after death from an animal which has received a large dose of cobra venom, it is seen that the serum which exudes from the clot is darkly stained with haemoglobin. In the second place, cobra venom has an action on the coagulability of the blood plasma, which action is also best demonstrated in vitro. It has the power of diminishing the coagulability of the blood, and even of entirely preventing clotting taking place. In animals dead of cobra venom intoxication, it is noticed that when a sample of blood is drawn, the clot which forms is not so firm or so compact as in normal blood, ami the Lime which it takes to form may be much lengthened. As far as my experiments have shown me, I can find no possible relation between the nervous symptoms which I have described, and this action which cobra venom has on the blood. A further proof that the action of this poison on the nervous system is a direct one is a Horded by the recent observations which Dr. Hunter has made on the changes in the cells of the central nervous system and in the peripheral