_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:—
Venomous. Harmless.
New South Wales, 21 out of 30
Victoria, 8 ” 12
South Australia, 13 ” 15
West Australia, 11 ” 15
Queensland, 28 ” 42
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 Homœopathic
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.
[Illustration]