Action of Snake-Poison on Special Nerve Centres.
It must be borne in mind that the symptoms as about to be detailed are successive only to some extent in the order presented. They commence generally at the lower part of the spinal cord, but immediately afterwards, if not simultaneously, are ushered in with great rapidity from other centres, masking each other and rendering it extremely difficult to observe and analyse them separately. They are also very variable through the poison concentrating its action on special centres, leaving others comparatively intact, and this not only when from different varieties of snakes, but also from snakes of the same variety. Another element increasing the difficulties of correct analysis are the depressing effects of fear, inseparable in all but the strongest minds from the consciousness of having been bitten, and so similar in appearance to those of snake-poison, that sometimes it is by no means easy to decide which of the two is in operation, and that only those cases are of real value to the observer from which this element of fear is completely excluded.