nued cold, and painful when pressed, with several vesications near
the elbow. The skin of the whole arm had a livid appearance, similar to what is met with in the dead body after putrefaction has begun to take place.
On the third day in the morning his pulse was scarcely perceptible; his extremities were cold; and the vesications were larger: but the swelling of the arm was diminished, and he had sensation in it down to the fingers. On the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth days the swelling continued subsiding, but more painful; and his pulse rising in strength, and diminishing in frequency. But on the tenth, his pulse had increased, and the arm was again swelled and inflamed. On the twelfth a large slough began to separate from the inside of the arm, below the axilla; and on the following day a large abscess had formed on the outside of the elbow, and discharged a quantity of reddish matter, with slough of cellular membrane floating in it.
On the sixteenth, it appeared that mortification had taken place on the skin near the axilla; and on the eighteenth he died.
The body was examined after death, and the appearances on dissection are described by Mr. Home. The most remarkable circumstance observed, was the entire separation of the skin from the muscles of the arm, with the exception of two or three, to which it still adhered imperfectly by a dark-coloured cellular membrane. The fluid in the pericardium, and blood in the aorta, had an unusual frothy appearance.
In addition to the foregoing case, Mr. Home adds an account which had been sent from India to the late Dr. Russel, of a Sepoy, 60 years of age, who had been bitten by a Cobra di Capello, on the back part of the hand, in whom the symptoms were extremely similar to those which occurred in the case above described; pain, faintness. sickness, with a quick and feeble pulse, swelling, discolouration, vesication, abscess, a copious dark and foetid discharge, continuing for about a week; after which the man gradually recovered, excepting that one finger remained permanently extended.
Mr. Home also gives an account of two experiments which he made in the \Vest Indies, on a couple of rats; the first of which, after being bitten by a venomous snake, died in one minute after the bite; and it is remarked, that the cellular membrane under the skin of the side bitten, was entirely destroyed.
The second rat, which was bitten one quarter of an hour afterwards by the same snake, was not so soon affected by the bite; and bit the snake so violently in the neck, as to kill it in ten minutes. The rat itself continued lively for nearly six hours, and then died.
