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.