CONTAGIOUS VENOM.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 376, 12 June 1889, Page 4

CONTAGIOUS VENOM.

It is stated that the blood of an animal bitten by a venomous snake assumes poi&onous properties. Frank Buckland on one occasion having seen a rat bitten and kil'ed by a cobra, directed off the skin to examine the wound. Having discovered the two minute punctures made by the poison fangs, he .scraped away with his fingernail the flesh on the inner bide of the skirTwbioh he had removed. Unfortunately, he had shortly before been cleaning his nail with a penknife, and had slightly sepatated the nail from the skin beneath. When he had completed his rapid examination of the rat he walked away, characteristically stulling the skin into his pocket (what strange things, alive and dead, did these pockets often contain). He had nob walked 100 yards before, all of a sudden, he felt just as if somebody had come behind him and stmck him a severe blow on the head, and at the same time experienced a most acute pain and sense of oppression at the chest — 'as though a hob iron had been tun in and a 100 weight put on top of it.' He knew instantly from what he had read that he was poisoned. Luckily he obtained ammonia and brandy, bub was ill for some days, 'flow virulent, therefore, 3 he says, 'must the poison of a cobra be. It had already been circulated in the body of the rab from which 1 had imbibed ib at secondhand.' From the account that he gave, however, it seems at least possible, if nob probable, that Pome of the poison was hanging about the wound unabsorbed and had thus entered his sysbem directly and not, as he believed, indirectly.