AUTHOR OF "THE GREAT AMERICAN FRAUD," "THE MYSTERY" (WITH STEWART
EDWARD WHITE), ETC.
ROMANCE revels in the peril of the unknown. Lapped about with the
armor-plate of civilization, the modern citizen muses
relishingly, like a child beguiling himself with ogre tales, upon
the terrors which lie just beyond his ken. To his mind,
A stone's throw out on either hand,
And all the world is wild and strange.
Avid for sensation, he peoples the remoteness of forest and
mountain with malign and destructive creatures, whence has grown
up an extensive and astonishing literature of snake and insect
poison lore.
"Deadly" is the master word of the cult. The rattlesnake is
"deadly." The copperhead and moccasin are "deadly." So is the
wholly mythical puff adder. In hardly less degree is the
tarantula "deadly," while varying lethal capacities are ascribed
to the centipede, the scorpion, the kissing-bug, and sundry other
forms of insect life. The whole matter is based upon the
slenderest foundations. I don't mean, by this, that these
ill-famed species are wholly innocuous. It would be highly
inadvisable to snatch a kiss from a copperhead or to stroke a
tarantula's fur the wrong way. But one could do it and live to
boast of the achievement. Pseudoscience to the contrary
notwithstanding, there is no living thing within the boundaries
of the United States of America whose bite or sting is sure death
or (with one possible exception) even probable death.
There are five varieties of venomous serpents in this country:
three of them Crotalids, and two belonging to the Elaps family.
The Elaps are rather rare. The Crotalids (rattlesnake, moccasin,
and copperhead) are common, and of the widest geographical
distribution. Yet, on the basis of actual evidence, the amazing
fact stands out that only about eighty persons, so far as is
ascertainable, have ever died from snake bite in the United
States. Nowhere in the Civil War records does a death from this
cause appear, though hundreds of thousands of men were living "on
the country," and at a time when the serpent clan was much more
numerous than now.
Estimates vary as to the proportion of deaths to bites. Prentiss
Willson believes that something over ten per cent. of all persons
bitten by venomous snakes in the United States die. As to how
many of these succumb, not to the venom, but to the misdirected
efforts of misguided friends at treatment--an extremely important
differentiation--he lacks the data upon which to base a
reckoning. S. Weir Mitchell's figures indicate 8.7 per cent.
mortality for rattlesnake bite. This would make the venom about
as dangerous as the toxin of typhoid fever, which is not
generally regarded as a necessarily "deadly" disease. Other
writers go as high as fifteen per cent. for the rattlesnake and
as low as one per cent. for the copperhead.
All general estimates seem to me to leave one basic element out
of consideration--the unnoted, non-fatal snake bites. That a bite
resulting in death will eventually get itself reported is
reasonably certain. On the other hand, I am satisfied, from
talking with plantation owners in the South, with ranchmen in the
West, and with woodsmen and hunters all over the country, that,
in the remoter regions, many instances of poisoning by
copperheads and the smaller rattlesnakes never attain the dignity
of being listed, so insignificant are they in their effects. Were
all these to be recorded, I believe that the mortality ratio
would fall notably.
Although I have been interested in the subject for many years, I
have never met a man who has seen a fatal case of snake bite.
More than this, my friend Mr. Stewart Edward White, a noted
hunter and explorer of untrodden ground in regions infested by
reptiles, has known of but one case terminating in death which he
believes to be authentic. Dr. J. A. Mitchell, of Victoria, Texas,
one of the most experienced of field observers, has never met
with an instance of fatality from this cause. Dr. Mitchell
believes that horses always, and dogs almost always, recover from
rattlesnake bite. He confirms, from observation, the mysterious
fact that hogs exhibit absolute immunity from the venom.