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22 one of poisonous snnke-bite or not; for even though there may be considerable differences in degree as to the amount of inflammation, yet the existence of any at all must indicate that there must be present a cause beyond the mere mechanical injury.

That the chief action of cobra-poison is on the nervous system, there can be no doubt. The exact nature of the action, however, is not so clear. The victim of cobra-poisoning just before death is usually an example of very complete general paralysis. Sir Joseph Fayrer and Dr. Brunton, who have written a most elaborate and valuable series of papers on the nature and physiological action of snake-poison, maintain that though the greater part of the nervous system is affected, yet the terminations of the motor nerves suffer especially, and in a very marked manner. They base their reasoning on the results produced by experiments in which the excitability of two nerves of the same animal is tested, one of which has been subjected to the action of the poison, and the other has been kept from contact with the poisoned blood by the limb to which it is distributed being ligatured, the nerve, however, being kept intact. Under these circumstances a great difference will be found in the electric excitability of the two nerves. These experiments have been