Whilst the voluntary muscles are thus brought under the influence of the poison, symptoms denoting the invasion of the oblongata are rapidly developing. The first of these is the deadly pallor and ashy hue of the cold skin, evidently due to the blood receding from the surface, a condition not unlike that obtaining in extreme anæmia. As persons in this state complain of an agonising feeling about the heart and of deadly faintness, a paretic condition of the heart suggests itself as the most obvious cause, more especially when taken in conjunction with the small, frequent, and compressible pulse. But though the heart muscle is no doubt participating in the general paresis, the condition of the surface of the body is in reality one of anæmia. The blood, even at this early stage, begins to accumulate in the large veins of the abdomen, which expand gradually in consequence of the diminishing motor force supplied by the splanchnicus, keeping them in the normal state of contraction when intact and having its centre in the medulla oblongata. When this large vaso-motor nerve is cut in animals anywhere in its course, the veins of the abdomen become distended enormously. The animal is, so to say, bled into its own belly. By a series of most interesting experiments Feoktistow has shown conclusively that snake-poison has the same effect on the abdominal circulation as section of the splanchnicus. Even slight intravenous injections of the poison produced quickly a high degree of paresis of the nerve and a corresponding engorgement of the veins of the abdomen, whilst after lethal doses, the paresis culminated in a few minutes in complete paralysis, followed by rapid collapse, excessive weakness of the bloodless heart, and death from paralysis of the latter and anæmia of the nerve-centres. One experiment deserves special record, as it also shows the untenability of the blood-poison theory. The whole vascular system of an animal poisoned by intravenous injection was thoroughly washed out with the warm defibrinised blood of four animals of the same species, the blood being infused into an external jugular vein and allowed to flow out of a crural artery. Although blood exceeding its normal quantity was left in the animal, when the vessels named were closed, the nerve affection remained unchanged. The blood pressure raised during the infusion sank at once again to zero, when it ceased, and the paralysed veins of the abdomen became engorged once more with the whole, or nearly the whole, of the blood-mass, leaving the rest of the body anæmic as before. This interesting experiment also shows how strong a hold the snake-poison has on the nerve-cells when they are thoroughly under its influence, and how independent this paralysing action is of the blood, persisting, as it was in this case, after all the poison had been washed out of the animal.