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Page 19
In delicacy of organism and perfection in mechanism and precision, the
inoculatory apparatus of the venomous reptile excels the most
exquisite appliances devised by the surgical implement maker's art,
and it is doubtful whether it can ever be rivaled by the hand of man.
The mouth of the serpent is an object for the closest study,
presenting as it does a series of independent actions, whereby the
bones composing the upper jaw and palate are loosely articulated, or
rather attached, to one another by elastic and expansive ligaments,
whereby the aperture is made conformatory, or enlarged at will--any
one part being untrammeled and unimpeded in its action by its fellows.
The recurved, hook-like teeth are thus isolated in application, and
each venom fang independent of its rival when so desired, and it
becomes possible to reach points and recesses seemingly inaccessible.
The fangs proper, those formidable weapons whose threatening presence
quails the boldest opponent, inspires the fear of man, and puts to
flight the entire animal kingdom--lions, tigers, and leopards, all but
the restless and plucky mongoose--and whose slightest scratch is
attended with such dire results, are two in number, one in each upper
jaw, and placed anteriorly to all other teeth, which they exceed by
five or six times in point of size. Situated just within the lips,
recurved, slender, and exceeding in keenness even the finest of
cambric needles, they are penetrated in their longitudinal diameter by
a delicate, hair-like canal opening into a groove at the apex,
terminating on the anterior surface in an elongated fissure. As the
canal is straight, and the tooth falciform, a like groove or
longitudinal fissure is formed at the base, where it is inclosed by
the aperture of the duct that communicates with the poison apparatus.
At the base of each fang, and extending from a point just beneath the
nostril, backward two-thirds the distance to the commissure of the
mouth, is the poison gland, analogous to the salivary glands of man,
that secretes a pure, mucous saliva, and also a pale straw-colored,
half-oleaginous fluid, the venom proper. Within the gland, venom and
saliva are mingled in varying proportions coincidently with
circumstances; but the former slowly distills away and finds lodgment
in the central portion of the excretory duct, that along its middle is
dilated to form a bulb-like receptacle, and where only it may be
obtained in perfect purity.
When the reptile is passive, the fangs are arranged to lie backward
along the jaw, concealed by the membrane of the mouth, and thus offer
no impediment to deglutition. Close inspection, however, at once
reveals not only their presence, but also several rudimentary ones to
supply their place in case of injury or accident. The bulb of the
duct, too, is surrounded by a double aponeurotic capsule, of which the
outermost and strongest layer is in connection with a muscle by whose
action both duct and gland are compressed at will, conveying the
secretion into the basal aperture of the fang, at the same time
refilling the bulb.
When enraged and assuming the offensive and defensive, the reptile
draws the posterior portion of its body into a coil or spiral, whereby
the act of straightening, in which it hurls itself forward to nearly
its full length, lends force to the blow, and at the same instant the
fangs are erected, drawn forward in a reverse plane, permitting the
points to look outward beyond the lips. The action of the compressor
muscles is contemporaneous with the blow inflicted, the venom being
injected with considerable violence through the apical outlets of the
fangs, and into the bottom of the wound. If the object is not
attained, the venom may be thrown to considerable distances, falling
in drops; and Sir Arthur Cunynghame in a recent work on South Africa
relates that he was cautioned not to approach a huge cobra of six feet
or more in length in its death agony, lest it should hurl venom in his
eyes and create blindness; he afterward found that an officer of Her
Majesty's XV. Regiment had been thus injured at a distance of
_forty-five feet_, and did not recover his eyesight for more than a
week.[1]
[Footnote 1: Presumably the Natal ombozi, or spitting cobra, _Naja
h�machites_, who is fully equal to the feat described.]
With the infliction of the stroke and expression of its venom, the
creature usually attempts to reverse its fangs in the wound, thereby
dragging through and lacerating the flesh; an ingenious bit of
devilishness hardly to be expected from so low a form of organism; but
its frequent neglect proves it by no means mechanical, and it
frequently occurs that the animal bitten drags the reptile after it a
short distance, or causes it to leave its fangs in the wound. Some
serpents also, as the fer de lance, black mamba, and water moccasin,
are apparently actuated by most vindictive motives, and coil
themselves about the part bitten, clinging with leech-like tenacity
and resisting all attempts at removal. Two gentlemen of San Antonio,
Texas,[2] who were bitten by rattlesnakes, subsequently asserted that
after having inflicted all possible injury, the reptiles scampered
away with unmistakable manifestations of pleasure. "Snakes," remarked
one of the victims, "usually glide smoothly away with the entire body
prone to the ground; but the fellow I encountered traveled off with an
up and down wave-like motion, as if thrilled with delight, and then,
getting under a large rock where he was safe from pursuit, he turned,
and raising his head aloft waved it to and fro, as if saying. 'Don't
you feel good now?' It would require but a brief stretch of the
imagination to constitute that serpent a veritable descendant of the
old Devil himself."
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