ghly
aroused, the reptile is enabled to constantly hurl a secretion, since
both rage and hunger swell the glands to enormous size, and stimulate
to extraordinary activity--a fortuitous circumstance to which many an
unfortunate is doubtless indebted for his life. The removal of a fang,
however, affects its gland to a degree that it becomes almost
inoperative, until such a time as a new tooth is grown, and again
calls it into action, which is commonly but a few weeks at most; and a
person purchasing a poisonous serpent under the supposition that it
has been rendered innocuous, will do well to keep watch of its mouth
lest he be some time taken unaware. It may be rendered permanently
harmless, however, by first removing the fang, and then cauterizing
the duct by means of a needle or wire, heated to redness; when for
experimental purposes the gland may be stimulated, and the virus drawn
off by means of a fine-pointed syringe.

In what the venom consists more than has already been described, we
are not permitted to know. It dries under exposure to air in small
scales, is soluble in water but not in alcohol, slightly reddens
litmus paper, and long retains its noxious properties. It has no acrid
or burning taste, and but little if any odor; the tongue pronounces it
inoffensive, and the mucous surface of the alimentary track is proof
against it, and it has been swallowed in considerable quantities
without deleterious result--all the poison that could be extracted
from a half dozen of the largest and most virile reptiles was
powerless in any way to affect an unfledged bird when poured into its
open beak. Chemistry is not only powerless to solve the enigma of its
action, and the microscope to detect its presence, but pathology is at
fault to explain the reason of its deadly effect; and all that we know
is that when introduced even in most minute quantities into an open
wound, the blood is dissolved, so to speak, and the stream of life
paralyzed with an almost incredible rapidity. Without test or
antidote, terror has led to blind, fanatical empiricism, necessarily
attended with no little injury in the search for specifics, and it may
be reasonably asserted that no substance can be named so inert and
worthless as not to have been recommended, or so disgusting as not to
have been employed; nor is any practice too absurd to find favor and
adherents even among the most enlightened of the medical profession,
who have rung all the chang