5. Discard vegetation, especially thick straggling shrubs like the Rangoon Creeper, close to your house. They are very apt to harbour snakes.
6. Important as are the above "Precautions," they are comparatively of small moment compared with the destruction—extermination if possible—of the snakes themselves. And this can only be efficiently carried out under Government supervision. That this is the only mode of effectually grappling with this gigantic evil, under which thousands of lives are annually sacrificed—the numbers are 19,060 in 1880, and 18,610 in 1881, besides 4568 cattle in the two years—is forcibly set forth by Sir Joseph Fayrer in two able papers in Nature, December 28, 1882, and January 18, 1883. Most earnestly is it to be hoped that Government, agreeably to his suggestion, will lose no time in establishing a department, with a responsible chief and subordinate agents, under whom a system of organised, determined, and sustained efforts for the destruction of the snakes shall be adopted and carried out. It would be a public boon if Sir Joseph's two papers were reprinted in pamphlet form, and circulated throughout the length and breadth of India.
In the meanwhile zealous individual effort should be brought to bear in the same direction. To this end money rewards (heading the list with eight annas for a Cobra) should be freely offered to the natives for every dead poisonous snake brought in, but for poisonous ones alone. Of these there are life-like coloured plates in Fayrer's Thanatophidia of India, and in Ewart's Poisonous Snakes of India, one or other of which works is to be found in almost every large station, and which it is highly desirable for every one to make himself acquainted with. One other point remains to be noticed, namely, the necessity of carefully impounding every such dead snake brought in and paid for; otherwise it is likely to do duty a few hours later, or even next day, or it may be made the means of extracting further "buck-sheesh" from one or more of the neighbouring "Sáhib-lóg!"
[4] Reprinted by permission from Sir Joseph Fayrer's splendid work, The Thanatophidia of India. Folio. London: Churchill. 1874.
APPENDIX C.
METHOD OF TREATMENT OF SMALL-POX BY MEANS OF CARBOLISED OIL.
My reason for giving this treatment of small-pox in detail is the frequent presence of the disease in India, in an epidemic form amongst the natives, with the hope that it may prove useful in ameliorating it, and thus save many useful lives which otherwise would probably succumb to its ravages from the terrible purulent discharge acted upon by a hot climate, creating a form of disease scarcely known in colder latitudes.
Before attending upon or assisting in the treatment of a case of small-pox, it is the duty of every one to see that they, their households, and those others who are likely to attend upon the case are sufficiently protected from the likelihood of infection by having been properly vaccinated, and that this operation had been successfully performed within at least four years. When there is a necessity for any one coming into immediate contact with the disease, as on the occurrence of an epidemic, it is advisable to be vaccinated whenever such epidemics occur.
There is a general belief that vaccination does not prove a success in the hot weather in India; do not credit this. If small-pox occurs as virulently as it does during the hot weather, on occasion, the success of the vaccination is also a certainty, if performed with care and a determination in its success.
Never mind how young an infant is, vaccinate it, even if it is only a day old, if you believe there is any probability whatsoever of its having come into, or likely to come into, contact with the infection of small-pox. Remember "the mortality of small-pox in childhood is very high up to the age of ten years. Infants usually succumb to the disease even in the discrete form."