THE VENOMS AND THEIR REMEDIES.

ON a subject which has baffled research in all ages, viz. the endeavour to discover an antidote for snake venom, it scarcely becomes me to speak. Yet, as in the foregoing chapters, I may at least venture to lay before my readers some general account of the various remedies used in snake regions, and, for the benefit of residents in those countries, describe the most approved means of treating the bites of venomous serpents. Information of this kind will not, I trust, be wholly useless.

First, it may be as well to impressively repeat what has been already constantly affirmed by all our scientific experimentalists on snake venoms, that ‘as yet no antidote to them has been found.’ Remedies there are in abundance; and it is just as great an error to believe that all snake venom is incurable—i.e. that a bitten person must necessarily die—as that there are countless ‘antidotes,’ as persons broadly and loosely call the various means of cure.

At the time when Professor Halford’s treatment by subcutaneous injections of ammonia were so popularly discussed, you might read week after week of ‘Halford’s newly-discovered antidote for snake-bites.’ Professor Halford, so far from claiming the discovery of an ‘antidote,’ emphatically explained that ammonia thus used was ‘only a mode of treatment.’ ‘It must never be forgotten,’ he said, ‘that ammonia cannot destroy the venom;’ by which we comprehend what the scientific mean by an ‘antidote,’ something that effectually destroys, neutralizes, and annihilates the poison. Sir Joseph Fayrer, after long and elaborate experiments with the Indian thanatophidia, prescribes various remedies and modes of treatment, ‘but do not confuse these with antidotes!’ he urges.[142] ‘To conceive of an antidote to snake poison in the true sense of the term,’ he explains, ‘one must imagine a substance so subtle as to follow, overtake, and neutralize the venom in the blood, or that shall have the power of counteracting and neutralizing the deadly influence it has exerted on the vital forces. Such a substance has still to be found, and our present experience of the action of drugs does not lead to hopeful anticipation that we shall find it.’

Notwithstanding these confident assertions, we are continually reading of ‘an infallible cure for snake-bite, never known to fail;’ ‘another antidote to snake-bite;’ or that ‘at length an antidote has been discovered,’ which on investigation may be something tried long ago, and occasionally with success, or it may be a plant or a chemical preparation which under certain circumstances effects a cure, but none of which will stand the above definition of antidote. Each new attempt is announced as ‘an antidote’ nevertheless. Dr. Arthur Stradling was severely hauled over the coals for ‘boasting of an antidote,’ when it accidentally transpired that he had been experimenting on himself ‘with a view to discovering, not an antidote, but a prophylactic against the venom,’ to use his own words.[143]

More recently still permanganate of potash has been announced as an antidote; and no doubt in some cases it has proved a successful remedy, as occasionally, but not invariably, other treatments have been. There still, however, appears to be the same lack of substantial evidence with regard to its being an ‘infallible antidote’ in the chemical acceptation of the term; and indeed as venoms themselves vary, a remedy that might prove effectual in one case might fail in another. Dr. Stradling, than whom perhaps few are more competent to offer opinions on the subject (he having for five or six years subjected himself to experiments and carefully noted the effects on his own person, as others have noted the effects on animals and birds bitten), says that you might as well hunt through the pharmacopeia for a drug that will be a specific in every kind of fever, or ‘to look for a general antidote to opium, strychnine, bella donna, arsenic, and mercury poisoning,’ as to expect to find one antidote for every kind of snake venom. ‘When we know how many different venoms there are, we may look for an antidote to each,’ he has explained.

Years ago the venoms were classed under the heads of Viperine, Echidnine, Crotaline, etc.; but Dr. Stradling states that he has found very different venoms in Crotalus horridus and Crotalus durissus, and that he prepared himself differently for each species of snake with which he experimented, having in five different species found five distinct and separate venoms. The bite of one snake more rapidly affects the blood, that of another the nerves; while the local and the constitutional symptoms also vary; but ‘all are attended more or less with rigors, delirium, syncope, convulsions, paralysis, and coma.’ Many of the so-called cures have not been cures at all, because, as was afterwards found, the snakes that inflicted the bites were not venomous. This we can understand from the indiscriminate use of such vernaculars as ‘adder,’ ‘jararaca,’ ‘cobra,’ as explained in previous chapters. Or, if undoubtedly a bite has been given by an undoubtedly venomous kind, it does not follow that a full charge of venom accompanied the bite. The glands may have been previously exhausted, the snake may have been feeble, or it might not have expended its poison. For among other marvels we are led to believe that vipers, perhaps also the elapidÆ, have a control over their store of venom, and do not involuntarily expend it, that is, when forced to bite. ‘Great doubt exists as to the efficacy of forced bites,’ says Nicholson. Dr. Weir Mitchel came to the same conclusion in his rattlesnake experiments, viz. that a snake ‘is able voluntarily to control the shedding of its poison when inflicting a wound or grasping an object with its jaws.’ This accounts for many bites not having proved fatal, and for reputed antidotes having effected ‘cures.’ Nor, when we come to think of it, does this control of the venom appear so extraordinary after all. The poison gland is a modification of ordinary salivary glands; and, if we may have recourse to a not very elegant comparison, a person or an animal can simulate the action of biting or of spitting without ejecting saliva. Again, as Dr. Stradling expresses it, ‘snake virus is a natural secretion provided for the distinct physiological purpose of enabling the reptile to secure its prey.’[144] Fayrer also explains that some snakes, naturally sluggish, ‘bite reluctantly;’ but, if irritated and made angry, then ‘with great force and determination.’ In the one instance a bitten person might recover, in the second case die, because here the snake ‘thoroughly imbedded its fangs’ (p. 379).

It is often asked, ‘Which is the most poisonous snake?’—a question as difficult to answer as, ‘Which is the most poisonous plant?’ Dr. GÜnther’s opinion is that the degree of danger depends less on the species which inflicts the wound, than on the bulk of the snake, the quantity of its venom, the season or temperature, and the place of the wound. Quantity for quantity, the virus of one snake is more active or more powerful than another, and different in its effects; but then the lesser discharge of poison directly into a vein might be more serious than a full discharge in a part where absorption is slow. Also exactly the same quantity, minim for minim, would more seriously affect a warm than a cold blooded animal, more seriously affect a feeble and timid person or animal than the brave and vigorous. Yet, as there is a notable gradation in the development of the poison apparatus, the perfection of which culminates in the viper, it seems not unreasonable to decide that as a rule a viper is more virulent than an elaps of the same size—let us say bulk, because the viperine snakes are short and thick and the elapidÆ long and slight. Each snake is supplied with venom adequate to its own requirements, that is, enough to kill the prey on which it subsists, a large viper with a larger supply for a larger animal; and a small elaps with enough to kill its little bird or mouse. There may be exceptions; as, for instance, in the Callophis intestinalis, whose glands are abnormally developed, though it is not a large snake; still accidents or experiments rather go to prove that a viper is more noxious than an elaps under similar conditions. Fayrer proved the virulence of Echis carinata, the little Indian 18-inch viper’s poison, by diluting a quarter of a drop of its venom in ten drops of water and injecting it into the leg of a fowl, which died in ten minutes; while the same proportions of cobra venom killed a fowl in thirty minutes. Nicholson affirms that the Russell’s viper can eject as much poison in half a second as a cobra can in three seconds. But if the viper be in a torpid condition, it might eject little or none. A strong Daboia bit a feeble bull, which died; but two feeble Daboias bit a strong bull, which recovered. These latter vipers were moulting, and their functions were inactive—the bites feeble, perhaps. In fact, the conditions are so many and great, that after all it is hazardous to form any definite conclusion. Some notes of the effects on bitten animals, taken at the Zoological Gardens while the snakes were being fed, shall be faithfully recorded in the ensuing chapter.

With regard to the many drugs used in various countries for the cure of snake-bite, it is curious to note that, as a rule, they are procured from the most deadly plants. As ‘like cures like,’ so poison cures poison. Most of them are powerful stimulants, in which lies their chief virtue. Among them are aristolochia, opium, ipecacuanha, senega-root, guaco or huaco, asclepias, liatris, euphorbia, polygala, ophiorrhiza, etc. A long list might be written. It is noteworthy, too, that the natives of the countries in which these plants are variously found, have strong faith in them, and indeed use them with more or less of success. The early writers on America entertained no sort of doubt as to the efficacy of the plants or preparations used by the Indians. Purchas, in 1626, after describing the ‘Ibiracua, which causeth by his biting the Bloud to issue thorow all Parts of the Bodie, Eyes, Mouth, Nose, Eares,’ etc., says: ‘But the Indians are acquainted with a certaine Herbe that will heal their Woundes.’ Lawson, Berkeley, and Catesby tell us the Indians were never without a remedy, which they carried about with them, but the preparation of which differed in each tribe. Border Americans of the present day, also, are never at a loss when snake-bitten, though the most popular of modern remedies is whisky. (Not that this offers any exception to the rule, that poison kills poison; the comic philosophy being that whisky, as the stronger poison of the two, ‘goes in for first innings, so to speak.’)

Some of the poisonous antidotal plants in South America are used in the preparation of the celebrated wourali or curare, with which the Indians poison their arrows. Snake-venom and pounded fangs are also constituents of this, which is why the effect in the blood—as has been shown in experiments—is similar to that of snake-bite. Some of the tribes are said to acquire immunity from the most virulent snakes by swallowing the potent herbs of their region. Inoculation with deadly vegetable juices is another of their remedies; and Tschudi informs us that after this inoculation, snake-bites are harmless for some time, but that the process has to be repeated. Sullivan has not much faith in the process; nor has Dr. Stradling. But there is one undeniable fact connected with the poisonous snakes of most countries, viz. that death by them is comparatively rare; and only in India do we hear of thousands dying annually. Dr. Carpenter, Humboldt, and, I believe, other writers of equal weight, have suggested that the poisonous plants used by native tribes, both internally and externally, may impart to the person an odour which is repugnant to snakes; and if this be the case, how would it be to institute compulsory inoculation among the low-caste Hindoos, who are the chief sufferers in India? Or, could not a few pariah dogs there be inoculated with the juice of some of the native plants, such as the ‘earth gall’ of Malay (Ophiorrhiza mungos), as the Indians of the Orinoco protect themselves with the Vejuco de huaco? Should the process succeed with valueless animals, it might afterwards be attempted in human beings. Perhaps already it has been attempted, and it would be gratifying could I flatter myself that it was through my suggestions of several years ago. Or I may be only betraying my own ignorance of surgery and of the pharmacopeia in suggesting it at all.

There are many popular vegetable ‘antidotes’ of the log cabin and the rough border-clearings of America, but the ‘faculty’ form no high estimate of them. Dr. Weir Mitchel tested some twenty or thirty plants which owe their reputation to Indian traditions, but without success. ‘In the hands of science they failed.’ But then is there not always some delay before the patient can reach the hands of science? It is the prompt treatment, and having the remedies always ready, that may ensure success among the natives. Probably many a bitten person, if alone in the desert, dies, and there are none to record his death. Nevertheless we have good reason for believing that the natives do learn how to manage deadly snakes or to avoid them. In South Africa it is very rare to hear of a person dying of snake-bite; and the natives go bare-footed there as much as in India. Some of the deadliest serpents also are found in Africa. In Australia, where there is a still larger majority of poisonous snakes (more than two-thirds of the whole number), and also bare-footed natives, deaths are comparatively infrequent. Krefft gives us a list which may be of interest to the residents there, viz. the proportions of the venomous to the harmless species of snakes:—

Whereas in India, including Ceylon, the venomous families are five to the thirty-five innocuous ones. In India alone GÜnther describes twenty families of snakes, out of which four only are venomous. When, therefore, we read the annual statistics of India, and the enormous death-rate, which suggest resolutions towards the extermination of snakes, we may again hint that education must join hands with science in order to find remedies. Europeans are seldom bitten; you might count the numbers on your fingers in as many years. Dr. Edward Nicholson has shown that while in twelve years (1860-1871 inclusive) only four British soldiers died from snake-bite, thirty-eight died from the bite of mad dogs; and he thinks it would be more beneficial to the community to kill off some of the hordes of these dangerous animals which infest the country during the summer months. Moreover, that ‘in comparison with preventible diseases and a percentage of the entire population, snake-bites are sensational trifles.’ He thinks the savage crusade against snakes worse than useless, and argues that it would be better to seek remedies for diseases that harm more Europeans in a week than snakes do in a century. Others tell us that the number of deaths is greatly exaggerated, and that many by violence or through fatalism and barbarities are set down to snakes.

But to return to remedies, one would suppose that drugs or plants which kill venomous snakes would be also cures for their bites. It is an old belief that vipers contain in themselves an ‘antidote’ to their venom, and hence the number of popular medicines prepared from their bodies. Conversely, some of the deadly poisons of the pharmacopeia are death to snakes. Aristolochia produces powerful effects on the African vipers; the white ash (Fraxinius Americanus) is an equally rapid poison to the rattlesnake, as Prof. Silliman proved. It is said that these reptiles are never found in the vicinity of this tree. It was the white ash which Oliver Wendell Holmes introduced into his story of ‘Elsie Venner,’ as being destructive to crotalus life, and the novelist wrote from his experience of its effects. Similar cases have been recorded in the Philosophical Transactions. Pennyroyal, says Charas, was held to the nose of a viper, ‘who by turning and wriggling laboured hard to avoid it; and in half an hour’s time was killed by it. This was in July, at which season these creatures are computed to be in the greatest vigour of their poison’ (1657).

Another drug which is poison to a venomous snake is tobacco, within the reach of most persons. This, among native remedies, has always been in favour, and we have heard of its efficacy ever since ‘the weed’ was known to Europeans. Various species of tobacco and its allies are indigenous to most tropical countries, and probably were in use for both man and snake-bites long before civilised nations took such comfort in smoking. In classic ages it was believed that human saliva was fatal to vipers, and it is even affirmed that the Hottentots often kill a puff adder by merely spitting upon it. One must infer from this that their saliva is saturated with some drug which they chew; and from classic authors we might discover that the practice of chewing tobacco, opium, or other drugs obnoxious to snakes, was in use from very early ages. Those classic authors who tell us that human saliva is fatal to snakes had not studied snake nature enough to assign a reason for this, though in all probability a reason did exist. ‘Man carries more poison in his mouth than a snake,’ said an old Virginian writer, alluding to nicotine. ‘He can poison a rattlesnake more quickly than it can him.’ Nicholson states that it also rapidly affects a cobra, and he recommends it, should you wish to destroy the snake uninjured: ‘You have,’ he says, ‘but to blow into its mouth a drop or two of the oil from a dirty tobacco-pipe.’

Two young men chopping wood together in Virginia espied a rattlesnake. With a forked stick one of them held its head close to the ground, keeping its body constrained with his foot, while his comrade took from his own mouth a quid of tobacco, which he forced into that of the snake. The reptile was then released, and had not crawled a couple of yards before it was convulsed, swelling and dying within a short time. Leaves of tobacco as a plaister, or chopped tobacco as a poultice, are applied to a bite by the American backwoodsmen, after the custom of the Indians; or finely chopped tobacco, mixed with moist gunpowder and some pulverized sulphur, formed into a plaister, and laid on the wound, and then set fire to. Tschudi, in his Travels in Peru, p. 434, saw this remedy successfully applied by an Indian to his wife’s bitten foot. A nausea-exciting drug was swallowed at the same time. With the copper-head snake (Ancistrodon contortrix) it is equally efficacious. These and rattlesnakes are said to be never found in tobacco fields.

Strychnine appears to have a similar effect to tobacco on snakes. Fayrer found cobras extremely susceptible to the influence of strychnine. An almost impalpable quantity caused a cobra to ‘twist itself up in a rigid series of coils and die.’

A good many experiments have been tried by a subcutaneous injection of strychnine into dogs and other animals, immediately after being bitten, but without sufficient success to warrant the adoption of it as an infallible remedy. In some of the cases, indeed, the deaths from tetanus suggest the question, ‘Did the cats and dogs die from venom, or from strychnine?’ As virulent poisons are administered in virulent cases, how would it be to swallow strychnine in chemically-prepared doses?

Carbolic acid is another drug which produces powerful effects, causing the reptile to ‘double itself up in numerous folds, remaining as stiff as if cast in metal.’ Creosote, also, snakes hate, Fayrer tells us, and recommends that these two drugs may at least be of use in driving them away from dwellings, as many of them have an objectionably domestic disposition. A few drops of carbolic acid poured on the floor of their cages kill venomous snakes in a very short time. A large Bungarus died in ten minutes in this way.

Dr. Weir Mitchel approves of carbolic acid so far as to recommend every backwoodsman to supply himself with a little of it, which is easily portable and manageable in capillary tubes. In several of his experiments with crotalus venom, carbolic acid applied to the wound was attended with success. But it must be done at once. The whole secret of cures—when cures can be effected at all—lies in promptness. It is celerity on the part of the Indians which ensures their success. In an instant, if his comrade be bitten, the savage is on his knees, sucking the wound, grasping the limb firmly, or strapping it tightly above and below the bite, knowing quite well the importance of checking the circulation. He has his ‘poison pills,’ and tobacco in his pouch. He explodes gunpowder on the wound and loses not an instant. Nor does the victim lose heart. He submits with courage and confidence, and in these lie another element of success. Many cases are on record of persons being at death’s door through fear alone, when bitten by a harmless snake, but recovering on being assured that there was no danger. And other cases are well known where bitten persons have died of fright and the depressing influences surrounding the accident, when they might possibly have recovered.

And assuredly the remedies are generally so severe as to be in themselves sufficiently terrifying. ‘No time for reflection;’ ‘no mercy must be shown,’ declares Sir Joseph Fayrer, in describing the incredible rapidity with which the venom inoculates the blood ‘in a moment of time.’ Where a deep wound has been inflicted by a highly venomous snake on a small animal, death has been known to occur in a few seconds, especially if the bite were on a large vein or an artery. Therefore if the bite be on a limb, to tie a ligature is the first thing to be done. A thong of leather, a tape, a string, a cord, a garment torn in shreds, anything that can be caught up, must at once be tied round the limb. Every instant of delay increases the danger. Incredible force must be used to tighten the ligature, which even with a tourniquet or a stick to twist the cord to the utmost is scarcely sufficient to completely stop the circulation in the fleshy part of a limb. So tight as to cut into the flesh is frequently necessary. In the case of a dog whose hind leg had been bitten, such amazing force was required, in one of Fayrer’s experiments, that with the strength of a pair of hands it was almost impossible to tighten the ligature sufficiently to effect complete strangulation. In another of his experiments a chicken had a ligature tightened round its thigh ‘with the greatest amount of tension that a man’s hand could exert.’ The poor chicken (already half dead with terror and pain, as one must conjecture) was then bitten below the ligature by a cobra, but in spite of the thorough strangulation of the limb, the fowl showed signs of poison in twenty-three minutes, and in three-quarters of an hour was dead. These two among other cases are cited to show that the mere tying of a tape or a pocket handkerchief round a bitten limb is of very little use, provided it is not drawn tight enough to almost cut into the flesh. Yet this is only the first step; for if assistants are at hand, let them tie a second or even a third such ligature above and below the bite when possible, while whoever is best able to operate must scarify the wound by cutting it across deeply, or by immediately cupping, letting it bleed freely; ‘better still,’ says Sir Joseph, ‘cut it out deeply and quickly.’ In the case of a finger or a toe, ‘amputate instantly; for if once the venom is absorbed into the system, there is but the slenderest chance of life.’ If the wound be in a fleshy part, force a red-hot iron to the very bottom of it, and burn it out to the depth of half an inch, or when excised fill it with gunpowder and explode that, or force a live coal into it, or burn it out with carbolic or nitric acid! Agonizing though the remedies be, they are inevitable, should the bite be inflicted by one of the larger and deadlier snakes in a part where absorption is rapid. ‘Do not relax the ligament till the part be cold and livid,’ adds Fayrer.

Nor, when we look at the effects of a bite, can we wonder at the severity of the remedies.

‘Vomiting black fluid,’ ‘bleeding at every orifice of the body,’ are among the horrible sufferings at the time; an injured constitution and hideous sores likely to break out afresh periodically in various parts, may be some of the after consequences should the patient recover.

As the effect of the bite is depressing, the system must be kept up with strong stimulants. Food is of little use, because the functions are too feeble to digest it. But great faith is placed in stimulants. Hence the popularity of ammonia, which is quickly diffusible. The venom exhausts the vital forces; therefore, excepting in the local surgical treatment, all the best remedies are volatile and alcoholic stimulants. Ammonia in the form of eau de luce has long been approved, both taken internally and rubbed into the wound. Professor Halford’s plan of subcutaneously injecting it has been very successful in some cases of Australian snake-bites, and the popularity of this mode has been seen in the large number of hypodermic syringes purchased by persons in the bush. But the use of these requires surgical skill; and awkward attempts by the laity have produced wounds which have been prejudicial to the originator; for though it is said that some attempts of this kind were made by Fontana about one hundred years ago, Halford could not have been aware of that, since he claims to be the first who ventured to throw ammonia directly into the blood. ‘Previously to my experiments in 1868,’ he says, ‘it had never been thought possible to throw ten or twenty minims of the strongest liquid ammonia directly into the veins without killing the man on the spot.’[145] He first tried it on animals, and finding it successful, at length ventured this ‘mode of treatment’ with human beings; since which other doctors in Australia have also practised it. Still he does not claim for it infallibility, though giving some cases in which the action of ammonia on the blood and on the heart’s action produced rapid recovery in persons apparently dying.

Any technical explanation must not be attempted by me; but those who are interested in this subject will find Prof. Halford’s own accounts in the Medical Times for 1873 and ensuing years, also in his paper ‘On the Condition of the Blood from Snake-bite,’ 1867.

In India similar kinds of experiments were not attended with success; leading to the conclusion that the Indian snakes were more deadly than those in Australia. Climate, latitude, season, and many other circumstances affect the virulence of snakes, as we may here repeat. The ‘Brown’ or ‘Tiger snake’ (Hoplocephalus curtus), the ‘Black snake’ (Pseudechis porphyriacus), Hoplocephalus superbus, and some other of the larger venomous kinds within the tropics are thought to be equal in virulence to the Indian ones of the same bulk in the same season. Many of them erect themselves and distend their necks like the najas.

And now for a few words about the most popular and perhaps most attainable of all remedies—alcohol! No wonder the backwoodsman resorts to this, which without any chopping off of fingers or toes, or personal pyrotechnics, or other local tortures, deadens his sensibilities, renders him unconscious of suffering, and sends him into a happy obliviousness of danger. It is not a refined mode of treatment, nor one that presents many opportunities of exhibiting professional skill; and it is no doubt somewhat derogatory to admit that to become dead drunk is an effective victory against snake venom! Other old and inelegant remedies we hear of as practised by the Bushmen of South Africa, and savage tribes elsewhere, but revolting in the hands of refined practitioners. Deference to science and loyalty to the profession demand some more elaborate means. Yet the efficacy of whisky or brandy is admitted by all, and the pioneer who has not a doctor within miles of him has his demijohn of whisky at hand.

During a sojourn in Iowa some years ago, when wild and uncleared lands formed the ‘streets’ of the town in which I was staying—Lyons on the Mississippi river, and as lovely a spot as artists and botanists can wish to revel in—it was by no means an infrequent occurrence to hear of rattlesnake bites. ‘What was done to the man?’ ‘Is he alive?’ were questions naturally asked.

‘He drank a quart of raw whisky, and got dead drunk.’

Generally a quart had the desired effect—that is, of causing intoxication. Persons unused to intoxicants might be affected by a less quantity, but so violent is the combat between venom and whisky that a large dose must be swallowed before any effects at all are produced. In the southern and hotter States it was similarly used. Indeed, a planter himself told me that Sambo would sometimes prick his hand or foot with a thorn, and crying out ‘Rattlesnake!’ fall into well-assumed agonies, in his preference for a spirituous somniferousness to cotton-picking. But when the fraud was detected and less enticing remedies were adopted, rattlesnake or copper-head bites became less frequent. I heard of a man in Nevada, George Terhune, a teamster (I give his name, having every reason to believe the truth of the story), who was bitten in the hand by a rattlesnake while stooping to reach some water out of a spring. The man was alone and far away from human habitations. It was an instinctive and momentary business to first kill the snake then rushing to his waggon, he drew the bung from a keg of whisky and took a large draught of the contents. After swallowing as much as he could, he took some tobacco from his pocket, saturated that with whisky, and applied this poultice to his hand. He then proceeded with his team, drinking whisky at intervals until he reached a dwelling, when he removed the poultice and found that the wound had turned green. Applying another of the same kind, he resumed his journey and his potent doses, reaching his destination next day ‘as sober as a judge,’ having imbibed enough ‘fire-water’ to intoxicate a dozen men with no crotalus venom in their veins. The quantity sometimes swallowed under such circumstances is utterly incredible.

Professor Halford describes a case of snake-bite near Melbourne, in which two bottles of brandy were drunk without any symptoms of intoxication; and another of a girl of fourteen, who, when bitten by an Australian snake, drank three bottles without being intoxicated! She recovered. ‘Alcohol has powerful attractions for oxygen,’ writes Professor Halford, on the theory that the venom has produced foreign cells in the blood, ‘so that if alcohol engage the oxygen absorbed by the poison, the cells perish and recovery ensues.’ Others among the ablest experimentalists similarly recognise the efficacy of alcohol. Dr. Shortt of Madras says: ‘Bring the patient under the influence of intoxication as speedily as possible. Make him drunk, and keep him drunk, until the virus is overcome.’ Dr. Weir Mitchel found that delicate women and young children under the influence of snake poison could take ‘quarts of brandy without injury, and almost without effect.’ One man brought to him—a man of temperate habits—took one quart of brandy and half a pint of whisky, which ‘only slightly intoxicated him for about four hours.’ Another man bitten in the throat was cured at the end of twenty-four hours, during which time he had had two quarts of whisky in one night, and renewed as the pulse fell, besides red pepper and other stimulants.[146]

In South Africa, too, the alcoholic remedies seem to be successfully adopted, so far as we may judge by occasional reports of them which find their way into print. In the Field of January 14th, 1882, a Mr. Walter Nightingale records that a boy of fifteen, bitten by a puff adder, drank two bottles of brandy before it had any effect; and a little girl two years old, bitten in the hand by a ‘horned viper’ (which might have been a Lophophrys or Vipera nasicornis), had administered to her brandy and milk in occasional doses without any visible effects, until a whole bottle of brandy had been thus swallowed! The child recovered; and the force of the argument seemed to rest on the astounding quantity of strong spirit that could be taken to overcome the venom without producing intoxication. Under ordinary circumstances, a wine-glassful of brandy would have made either of those children tipsy, yet the infant of two years did not reel under a whole bottleful, and the boy of fifteen under two bottles full—a quantity that would have killed many outright.

Yet whisky is not an ‘antidote’ chemically, any more than is ammonia, or tobacco, or artificial respiration, which latter has been tried with success by Drs. Vincent Richards and Lauder Bruton. So rapidly destructive to every vital function is snake venom, that anything that will keep life going until the poison is eliminated is desirable; and what would themselves be poisons in other cases here act only as counterfoils. ‘A septic of astounding virulence,’ Weir Mitchel has proved crotalus venom to be; and the scientific experimentalists on the Oriental thanatophidia confirm his words as regard the najas and vipers of their own regions. A subtle, malignant, mysterious fluid, to which all animal life succumbs. Even vegetables are affected by it, as Mitchel proved. Inoculated with it, they looked dead next day as if scathed by lightning. So those old writers on Virginian serpents might not have been so far wrong after all, so far as the injurious effect of venom on a young tree; only they made a slight mistake in supposing that the ‘thorny tail’ inflicted the mischief (p. 174).

It is not within the compass of this work to attempt to describe in detail the many remedies which from time to time have enjoyed a short-lived popularity; such as ‘snake stones,’ the ‘Tangore pill,’ and other preparations. Conventions have within the last twenty years been held in India, in Australia, in America, and London; and Commissioners from among our most distinguished M.D.’s have been appointed to investigate all the reputed ‘antidotes’ and popular remedies that could be got together. The names of Dr. Ewart, Dr. Lauder Bruton, and Dr. Vincent Richards of the Indian Medical Department, as associated with artificial respiration, must be familiar to many. Dr. Shortt, of Madras, claims originality in the use of potash, liq. potassÆ, which both by the mouth and by injection has been attended with success. He has recorded several cures by liq. pot., ‘not as miraculous, but as rational.’ He affirms that it has the property of neutralizing the venom, and that brandy expedites it by carrying it rapidly through the system. Potash or soda plentifully applied to the wound is a popular remedy also among the border pioneers of America, who, on the theory that venom is of an acid nature, make frequent use of alkalis. The child of a gentleman whom I knew in Virginia was bitten on the foot by a rattlesnake; his whole body quickly exhibited the symptoms of the poison. But the father was so confident of the success of his own domestic treatment that he did not even send for a doctor. ‘Saleratus’ (used in cookery) was bound upon the bitten spot, and the child was dosed with apple brandy until stupefied. Next day he was well.

From all the ‘recoveries’ above quoted, it may be said that the bites could not have been very deep, or that the snakes could not have been very virulent; and in the many hundreds of experiments tried in India and elsewhere, the doctors have arrived at similar conclusions. A full charge of venom injected directly into the veins, should no remedy be attempted, is almost certain to be fatal. Within half an hour a man might die from a vigorous crotalus, fer de lance, or large elaps.

It is important to impress this on the reader, lest from the cures above cited, I appear to argue that snake-bite is not so serious an affair after all. Notwithstanding that the South American Indians, in the midst of the most deadly of the CrotalidÆ, do fly confidently to their guaco and their traditional remedies, they know so well when there is no chance of recovery that they attempt no cures whatever. Travellers tell us they lay themselves down to die when bitten by certain snakes; probably they know that, from the position of the bite, or the accidental lack of essential remedies, there is no hope for them. They are said to resign hope when bitten by the little Peruvian viper (Echis ocellata), in the very heart of the tropics, and as deadly as the little echis of India. In every case the symptoms point to the exhaustion of the nerve centres, and the rapid decomposition of the blood.

The venom appears to be an indestructible fluid. Toxically it remains unaltered whether boiled or frozen, or mixed with the strongest corrosives. Diluted in water, alcohol, or blood, it is still equally injurious. The blood of an animal killed by a bite, if injected into the veins of another animal, kills that one also; and the blood of the second one killed is similarly fatal to a third, and the third to the fourth, and so on through a series of animals. Also so small a quantity is fatal where no remedies are attempted, that a venomous serpent can kill six or eight animals one after another; each one, bitten in succession, succumbing more slowly, it is true, but still dying at last. Fayrer found that no less than nine creatures could thus be affected by one cobra. A dog, a pigeon, and seven fowls were bitten one after the other: the dog, first bitten and receiving the largest injection of venom, died in thirty-three minutes; a fowl, next bitten, in three minutes; the third, in ten minutes; the fourth bitten, in eleven; the fifth, in seventeen minutes; but the ninth bitten, a fowl, when the poison gland was exhausted, recovered after a time. And the same effect is seen in much larger animals than fowls. Fayrer also tells of four men bitten in succession by one cobra, only the last one bitten receiving treatment, and recovering-slowly after many days. The facts prove the fatal confidence placed in snake-charmers, if further proofs be needed. The four men, on payment of money, were to be taught the ‘spells,’ mÜntras, etc., and, as they hoped, to be endowed with curative powers. The professional ‘snake men’ bullied them into playing with a cobra and irritating it, with the promise that no harm should follow, even if they were bitten, which one of them very soon was, falling senseless immediately, and dying within an hour. Not warned by the utter failure of ‘charms’ to restore their comrade, the other three permitted themselves to be bitten. The strongest charge of venom having been expended in the first bite, the man next bitten did not fail so rapidly, the third still more slowly, but both died the next day. When the fourth was bitten, the police were informed of what was going on, and they carried him off to the hospital, and the charmers to prison. Thus is the death-rate swelled.

Though the venom may be swallowed with impunity by a thoroughly healthy person, there is always danger of its being absorbed through the delicate membranes of the throat and stomach. In cases of sore throat, injured gums or lips, or internal maladies, the risk would be great, of course. Animals killed by the venom are constantly eaten, Fayrer states; and that the hungry natives eagerly carried off the fowls upon which he had experimented. Since those celebrated experiments at Florence by the ‘Florentine Philosopher,’ Redi, and those other ‘Knowing Physicians’ above two hundred years ago, the venom has been swallowed by many. The great point of discussion then was to ascertain the source of the ‘Mischiefs;’ whether they arose in the gall or the ‘Juyce of the Bag at the root of the Master Teeth;’ and Redi tasted both the Gall and the ‘Spittle from the Bag’ in order to test this great question, and found ‘the Gall sharp and the Spittle flat.’ As the learned physicians of the nineteenth century have been again trying effects, so did those ‘Knowing Physicians’ work out similar problems in 1670, no doubt suggesting many things that have subsequently been solved and perfected. One Francini was hard to convince that only a tooth and not a demoniacal spirit inflicted the injury; whereupon, to convince that unbeliever, they thrust a thorn and a pin into the breast of a fowl, which betrayed no ill effects; but a splinter of wood covered with ‘Spittle from the Bag’ killed a pigeon as quickly as the ‘Master Tooth.’ They showed, also, that a dissevered head was able to bite, and its ‘Biting is as dangerous as when the Viper is entire.’ They proved other things, too numerous to recount; and particularly, that venom was not injurious in a healthy stomach, the question from which we have strayed to Florence.

Lately we have been led to think that it is something more than harmless. Through the researches of Professors Selmi, Lacerda, Gautier, and others, we learn that from the powerful peptic properties of the venom it may become a valuable medicine. I think I am correct in stating that a Dr. C. Hering of Philadelphia, when practising in British Guiana some forty years ago, introduced the venom of our celebrated Curucucu (Lachesis mutus) into medicine; and that since then, serpent venoms have held an important place in the Homoeopathic Pharmacopeia. Already we have hinted at the digestive properties of venom to the serpents themselves, that neither masticate nor take exercise otherwise to promote digestion; and there are those among us who, not lacking energy so much as time, and whose busy brains permit them but little leisure for either exercise or the unhurried meal, may be glad by and by to resort to a poison pill to cure the ‘dyspepsia’ they thus bring upon themselves. Our American cousins will hail with joy such a discovery. Perhaps even now they are anticipating a prize medal at the next Great International Exhibition, for a newly-invented ‘Extract of Bushmaster’ as the infallible remedy. American Bothropine.—‘One drop of this extract in a wine-glassful of water taken immediately after dinner ensures that meal being swallowed in three minutes with impunity.’ Would not this deserve a gold medal in these days when one man tries to do the work of three?

Drs. Lacerda and Netto of Brazil have proved that crotaline venom acts as a solvent on hard-boiled egg and other albuminous substances,—that it can, as it were, digest living tissues; and Dr. Stradling thinks that this solvent or disintegrating power will in some measure account for the intense local severity of a venomous snake-bite, ‘so disproportionately wide-spread to the tiny punctures made by the needle-like tooth.’

The excision of the fang does not check the function of the poison gland any more than the extraction of a tooth will check the salivary secretions in a human mouth, because (as was described in the chapter on ‘Dentition’) there are other fangs coming forward and requiring similar supplies.

One great value in experimental snake-bites by subcutaneous injection is knowing which specific venom, or how much of it, produces certain effects. But there is this to be said with regard to the creatures operated upon, that the restraint, terror, and pain necessarily inflicted before the venom is injected, must do a great deal towards rendering that victim predisposed to succumb under ever so small a dose; and in some cases 6, 8, or 10 drops of venom have been injected. If terror and timidity act so strongly on a nervous human subject, they must act similarly on such feeble, frightened creatures as fowls, rabbits, and guinea-pigs, that are held, strapped down, and tortured by ligaments and lancets.

Human beings may take courage in reflecting that in some of the experiments under which animals have died, in spite of immediate remedies, a far larger dose of venom has been injected than could possibly pass through the fang in one normal bite. The virulence of the venom in ever so minute a quantity has been proved sadly enough; yet the possibility and hope of recovery are also evident.

‘As prevention is better than cure,’ those who run risk in the tropics can guard against bites by wearing thick coverings to their feet and ankles in the way of gaiters, leather boots; and denser materials for clothing, in preference to those which the finely-pointed fangs can easily penetrate. The cloth or leather may then receive the principal charge of venom. Silk as a lining is good, and has the advantage of coolness. Anything rather than bare feet. Then supplies of ammonia, tobacco, carbolic acid, and strong tape are easily portable, and plenty of good whisky, if the bearer can courageously keep it for emergencies.

The mongoose of classic reputation must have a passing mention; though it is now pretty well understood that this little animal owes its safety to its own bravery and adroitness, more than to any supposititious herb to which it flies. Not but what instinct may induce it to eat of the plants nature provides to animals as to men, and as a cat eats grass when nature dictates a necessity for physic. The mongoose has been known to die of snake-bite like other bitten animals, though it certainly succumbs more slowly than many. Vitality is stronger in some animals than in others. A rat is hard to kill; and a cat will resist the poison as long as a dog of three times its size. Then if mongooses feed on venomous snakes, they may enjoy in themselves a sort of protective or prophylactic security. Their long fur is also protective, leaving but few vulnerable points; and their strong vitality enables them to escape and probably overcome the bite if slight, or to hide away and die unseen.

The question of immunity from bites suggests yet one other point on which some uncertainty exists, viz. Do snakes die of their own bites? Dr. E. Nicholson only shall be quoted here, because I shall be able to introduce some cases from personal observation in the ensuing chapter, concluding this with just one foreign example which may be relied upon. ‘According to my experience,’ says Nicholson, ‘the poison of venomous snakes affects not only harmless ones, but also venomous snakes of other genera.’ My own opinion is that they can kill not only other snakes, but even themselves if the charge of venom be strong enough. What has occasionally been seen in print of ‘snakes committing suicide,’ is, I think, only from an instinct in the serpent to strike at what injured it where injured. It feels a sudden pain and turns to avenge the injury, striking itself on the spot where the pain directs. A case was recorded in a paper of a cobra having been struck by a bullet, and instantly twisting round to bite itself on the spot, and presently dying; and this was called ‘snake suicide.’ It died in part perhaps from the bullet, and partly from its own venom, which injected in anger would be powerful. Several similar cases have come to my notice, where snakes have thus attacked themselves when the instinct has been evidently to strike the cause of pain.

In vol. xxii. of Nature, p. 40, the case recorded by Mr. S. H. Wintle from Tasmania will, I think, bear this explanation. He pinned a ‘black snake’ (probably Pseudechis porphyriacus) to the ground with a forked stick by the middle of the body; instantly coiling round the stick, the angry snake turned and buried its fangs in itself, making the part wet with viscid slime. Hardly had it done this than the coils relaxed; a perceptible quiver ran through its body; in a few moments more it lay extended and motionless, open mouthed and gasping, and in three minutes was dead. Mr. Wintle examined the snake after death, and found the body ‘bloodless,’ as though the poison had destroyed the colouring matter. He tried the blood on a mouse, which died in five minutes; and on a lizard, which died in fourteen minutes.

If the saliva of an angrily-excited human being or a dog be more injurious at one time than another, how much more so that of a venomous serpent. The flow would be greater, the character more noxious. It seems therefore a mere question of power or virulence, the greater over the less. In some cases one serpent might kill another, in other cases not.