Incorrect ideas of the power of the reptile family, coupled with superstitious dread, have no doubt served considerably to exaggerate the fear of snakes. Many, we know, are of the most venomous character; but, as we become better acquainted with the different species, we shall find that by far the greater portion are harmless, or nearly so. The remarkably few cases of death occurring from their bites are a corroboration of this. Moreover, like the rest of lower animals, the most deadly reptile will generally fly at the sight of man. It only exerts its formidable powers of destruction when about to be trampled upon or assailed. Were it otherwise, many of the more humid parts of our globe, where snakes literally swarm, would be uninhabitable. Before setting foot on African soil, my head was full of the dangers to which I should be exposed from them, either when “treading the maze of the jungle,” or when traversing the endless sand-plains. Habit and experience have since taught me to regard snakes with something akin to indifference.
Some of the antidotes in Southern Africa for the bites of snakes and the stings of poisonous insects are simple, singular, and striking.
The first point to be attended to is (if it be practicable) to tie a string or ligature tight above the wounded part, so as to prevent the venom spreading.
Cutting away, or applying caustic to the wounded part, if promptly and unhesitatingly done, is also likely to prevent fatal consequences.
Europeans have usually recourse to eau de luce, five drops of which is administered to the patient in a glass of water every ten minutes until the poison is counteracted. Eau de luce is also applied externally. Another very good plan is to scarify with a knife the wound, and then boldly to suck it. Care, however, must be taken that one has no sore about the lips or mouth. Sweet milk, oil, or spirits of hartshorn must then be applied to the wound. The patient should also be made to drink freely of sweet milk.
In the Cape Colony, the Dutch farmers resort to a cruel but apparently effective plan to counteract the bad effects of a serpent’s bite. An incision having been made in the breast of a living fowl, the bitten part is applied to the wound. If the poison be very deadly, the bird soon evinces symptoms of distress, “becomes drowsy, droops its head, and dies.” It is replaced by a second, a third, and more if requisite. When, however, the bird no longer exhibits any of the signs just mentioned, the patient is considered out of danger. A frog similarly applied is supposed to be equally efficacious.
A certain white bean found in some parts of the colony (designated, somewhat singularly, the gentleman bean) has also been known to cure the bites of serpents and other poisonous creatures. Thus a Damara woman who had been stung by a scorpion was once brought to Mr. Hahn with her whole body very much swollen and inflamed. She was already in such a state as to be unable to walk. He instantly divided one of the beans in question, and applied it to the wound, to which it adhered with such tenacity as only to be removed by force. When the virus was extracted, the bean dropped off of its own accord, and the woman, after a time, thoroughly recovered.
“As an antidote against the bite of serpents,” says Thunberg, in his Travels in South Africa, “the blood of the turtle was much cried up, which, on account of this extraordinary virtue, the inhabitants dry in the form of small scales or membranes, and carry about them when they travel in this country, which swarms with this most noxious vermin. Whenever any one is wounded by a serpent, he takes a couple of pinches of the dried blood internally, and applies a little of it to the wound.”[60]
And Kolben, when speaking of the cobras (called by the first colonists the hair-serpent), says: