Each
line is to be written separately on a slip of paper, and then rolled
into the form of a pill, the whole five to be given as soon as possible
after the person or animal has been bitten. He also gave me quite as
ridiculous a remedy for the cure of drunkenness. This was to place a
piece of bread in the arm-pits of a dying man, and allow it to remain
there till he was perfectly dead. The smallest portion of this bread,
he affirmed, given, without their knowledge, to those addicted to
intemperance, would produce a perfect cure. Catesby mentions that in
North America he has seen death result from the bite of a Rattle Snake
in less than two minutes; I have also heard of death taking place very
shortly after the bite in Brazil, but I have never actually seen it in
less than ten or twelve hours. In those cases where the poison acts so
quickly, it must be so strong as to destroy the nervous energy at once.
In those in which the patient lingers for one or more days, death
generally takes place from inflammation and mortification of the
subcutaneous cellular substance. During the course of my journeys in
the interior, I met frequently with persons who had recovered from
severe snake bites, but almost all of them had broken constitutions,
and suffered from ulcerated limbs. Erom all that I have seen, I
candidly confess, that I have no faith in any medicine intended to act
as a specific for a snake bite, whether used internally or externally.
I do not of course allude to those which are usually applied for the
reduction of inflammation and fever, as under any mode of treatment
they cannot be withheld. A ligature attached above the wound, and
instant incisions into the wound itself, and the application of a
cupping-glass, which, in the shape of a wine glass, is always at hand,
are more to be depended oil than any other external remedial agency.
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