"The leprous distillment whose effect Bears such an enmity to the blood of man That swift as quicksilver, it courses through The natural gates and alleys of the body And with sudden vigor it doth posset And curd like eager droppings into milk, The thin and wholesome blood: so did it mine And a most instant tetter marked about Most lazar like, with vile and loathsome crust All my smooth body."
It is not to be supposed, however, that all or even a major portion of the blood disks require to be changed or destroyed to produce a fatal result, since death may supervene long before such a consummation can be realized. It is the capillary circulation that suffers chiefly, since the very size and caliber of the heart cavities and trunk vessels afford them comparative immunity. But of the greatly dissolved and disorganized condition of the blood that may occur secondarily, we have evidences in the passive hæmorrhages that attack those that have recovered from the immediate effects of serpent poisoning, following or coincident with subsidence of swelling and induration; and, as with scurvy, bleeding may occur from the mouth, throat, lungs, nose, and bowels, or from ulcerated surfaces and superficial wounds, or all together, defying all styptics and hæmastatics. In a case occurring under the care of Dr. David Brainerd in the Illinois General Hospital,[6] blood flowed from the gums in great profusion, and on examination was found destitute, even under the microscope, of the faintest indications of fibrine--the principle upon which coagulation depends. The breath, moreover, gave most sickening exhalations, indicative of decomposition, producing serious illness in those exposed for any length of time to its influence. We may add, among other sequelæ, aside from death produced through primary and secondary effects, paralysis, loss of nerve power, impotence, hæmorrhage, even mortification or gangrene.
[Footnote 6: _Medical Independent_, 1855.]
The failure in myotic power of the heart and in the muscles of respiration through reflex influence of par vagum and great sympathetic nerves, whereby pulmonary circulation is impeded, are among the earliest of phenomena. Breathing becoming retarded and laborious, the necessary supply of oxygen is no longer received, and blood still venous, in that it is not relieved of its carbon, is returned through the arteries, whereby the capillaries of the brain are gorged with a doubly poisoned circulation, poisoned by both venom and carbon. In this we have ample cause for the attending train of symptoms that, beginning with drowsiness, rapidly passes into stupor followed by profound coma and ultimate dissolution--marked evidence of the fact that a chemical agent or poison may produce a mechanical disease; and autopsical research reveals absolutely nothing save the general disorganization of blood corpuscles, as already noted.
