Effect of Egyptian Black Snake Toxin on Histamine of Blood and Its Relation to Blood Eosinophils

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Abstract
The Egyptian black snake Walterinnesia is an extremely poisonous snake which lives in the Sinai desert near Suez. Many fatal attacks of this snake to camping soldiers and local inhabitants have been reported. This works shows that the injection of sublethal and lethal doses of the purified toxin causes an increase in the blood histamine. The effect on the circulating eosinophils varies, while the sublethal dose of the toxin causes reduction in their number, the lethal dose causes a significant increase. The eosinophil leucocyte is not of special importance as a carrier of blood histamine. The change in blood histamine is probably a quite separate mechanism which has no relation to suprarenal cortex activity or to the change in the number of blood eosinophils.