To the above remarks, Sir J. Fayrer adds: "The measures suggested are no doubt severe, and not such as under other circumstances should be entrusted to non-professional persons. But the alternative is so dreadful that even at the risk of unskilful treatment, it is better that the patient should have this chance of recovery."
PRECAUTIONS TO BE OBSERVED BY PERSONS RESIDING IN SNAKE-INFESTED LOCALITIES.
That prevention is better than cure is admitted on all hands; hence those persons whose lot is cast in snake-infested localities will do well to lay to heart the following passage from the official "Report on Indian and Australian Snake-poisoning," by Drs. Joseph Ewart, Vincent Richards, and S. Coull Mackenzie (Calcutta, 1874).
The poisonous snakes of India, as a general rule, "are, until provoked, perfectly inoffensive to all animals not required by them as food. They seldom assume the aggressive until they are rudely and accidentally disturbed. Thus a native sleeping on the ground rolls over a venomous snake, or whilst walking in the jungle, or long grass, or in the dark, treads upon some part of a snake's body. In either case the snake bites if he can. It is in this way that a large proportion of snake accidents happen.
"A large number of lives would be saved annually if the native population could be prevailed upon to sleep on charpoys, and if they got into the habit of never stepping from their beds at night without first seeing, by means of a light, that the ground below is clear, and free from snakes. Much of the immunity which Europeans and educated natives enjoy from snakebite is due to their using these very necessary precautions, especially during the rainy season, and in the mofussil by their never walking abroad at night without a light. There is scarcely a European of experience in the mofussil who cannot recount examples of lives (often their own) having been saved by means of these simple precautions."
To the above judicious advice (the most important points of which I have italicised) may be added the following excellent practical precautions, communicated to me by friends whose Indian experience gives great weight to their suggestions.
1. Snakes never voluntarily traverse rough or broken ground: it is therefore advisable in snake-infested localities to surround your dwelling with a cordon or belt of broken bricks or kunkur—a breadth of three or four feet is quite sufficient for the purpose.—Dr. Norman Chevers.
2. Be careful, especially during the wet season, to keep the verandahs, &c., free from frogs: a frog is a temptation which a snake has little or no power to resist.—Dr. Norman Chevers. The same remark is equally applicable to rats.
3. In the cold season, if you see a snake coiled up or in an apparently lifeless state in an open, well-frequented road or pathway, be careful how you approach him. Should you handle or disturb him roughly, he will in all probability rouse up and bite you. He is only torpid from cold, not dead.—Dr. Norman Chevers.
4. Have a piece of perforated zinc or tin fitted to the opening made for the purpose of carrying off the water out of the bath-room, if it be on the ground floor. A similar piece should be added to the bottom of the bath-room door should it not (as it rarely does) reach the ground beneath.—Mr. Arthur J. Waring.