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.