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Page 20
[Footnote 2: On the authority of N.A. Taylor and H.F. McDaniels.]
As the first blow commonly exhausts the receptacle of the duct, a
second (the venom being more or less mingled and diluted by the
salivary secretion) is comparatively less fatal in results; and each
successive repetition correspondingly inoffensive until finally
nothing but pure mucus is ejected. Nevertheless, when thoroughly
aroused, the reptile is enabled to constantly hurl a secretion, since
both rage and hunger swell the glands to enormous size, and stimulate
to extraordinary activity--a fortuitous circumstance to which many an
unfortunate is doubtless indebted for his life. The removal of a fang,
however, affects its gland to a degree that it becomes almost
inoperative, until such a time as a new tooth is grown, and again
calls it into action, which is commonly but a few weeks at most; and a
person purchasing a poisonous serpent under the supposition that it
has been rendered innocuous, will do well to keep watch of its mouth
lest he be some time taken unaware. It may be rendered permanently
harmless, however, by first removing the fang, and then cauterizing
the duct by means of a needle or wire, heated to redness; when for
experimental purposes the gland may be stimulated, and the virus drawn
off by means of a fine-pointed syringe.
In what the venom consists more than has already been described, we
are not permitted to know. It dries under exposure to air in small
scales, is soluble in water but not in alcohol, slightly reddens
litmus paper, and long retains its noxious properties. It has no acrid
or burning taste, and but little if any odor; the tongue pronounces it
inoffensive, and the mucous surface of the alimentary track is proof
against it, and it has been swallowed in considerable quantities
without deleterious result--all the poison that could be extracted
from a half dozen of the largest and most virile reptiles was
powerless in any way to affect an unfledged bird when poured into its
open beak. Chemistry is not only powerless to solve the enigma of its
action, and the microscope to detect its presence, but pathology is at
fault to explain the reason of its deadly effect; and all that we know
is that when introduced even in most minute quantities into an open
wound, the blood is dissolved, so to speak, and the stream of life
paralyzed with an almost incredible rapidity. Without test or
antidote, terror has led to blind, fanatical empiricism, necessarily
attended with no little injury in the search for specifics, and it may
be reasonably asserted that no substance can be named so inert and
worthless as not to have been recommended, or so disgusting as not to
have been employed; nor is any practice too absurd to find favor and
adherents even among the most enlightened of the medical profession,
who have rung all the changes of the therapeutical gamut from
serpentaria[3] and boneset to guaco, cimicifugia, and _Aristolochia
India_ to curare, alum, chalk, and mercury to arsenic; and in the way
of surgical dressings and appliances everything from poultices of
human f�ces,[4] burying the part bitten in fresh earth,[5] or
thrusting the member or entire person into the entrails of living
animals, to cupping, ligatures, escharotics, and the moxa.
[Footnote 3: Serpentaria derives its name from its supposed
antidotal properties, and guaco and _Aristolochia India_ enjoyed
widely heralded but rapidly fleeting popularity in the two Indias
for a season. Tanjore pill (black pepper and arsenic) is still
extensively lauded in districts whose serpents possess little
vitality, but is every way inferior to iodine.]
[Footnote 4: A Chinese remedy--as might be imagined.]
[Footnote 5: Still extensively practiced, the first in Michigan,
the latter in Missouri and Arkansas, and inasmuch as one is
cooling and soothing, and the other slightly provocative of
perspiration in the part, are not altogether devoid of
plausibility.]
Although the wounds of venomous serpents are frequently attended with
fatal results, such are not necessarily invariable. There are times
and seasons when all reptiles are sluggish and inactive, and when they
inflict comparatively trifling injuries; and the poison is much less
virulent at certain periods than others--during chilling weather for
instance, or when exhausted by repeated bites in securing sustenance.
Young and small serpents, too, are less virile than large and more
aged specimens, and it has likewise been observed that death is more
apt to follow when the poison is received at the beginning or during
the continuance of the heated term.
The action of the venom is commonly so swift that its effects are
manifested almost immediately after inoculation, being at once
conveyed by the circulatory system to the great nervous centers of the
body, resulting in rapid paralysis of such organs as are supplied with
motive power from these sources; its physiological and toxicological
realizations being more or less speedy accordingly as it is applied
near or remote from these centers, or infused into the capillary or
the venous circulation. Usually, too, an unfortunate experiences,
perhaps instantaneously, an intense burning pain in the member
lacerated, which is succeeded by vertigo, nausea, retching, fainting,
coldness, and collapse; the part bitten swells, becomes discolored, or
spotted over its surface with livid blotches, that may, ultimately,
extend to the greater portion of the body, while the poison appears to
effect a greater or less disorganization of the blood, not by
coagulating its fibrine as Fontana surmised, but in dissolving,
attenuating, and altering the form of its corpuscles, whose integrity
is so essential to life, causing them to adhere to one another, and to
the walls of the vessels by which they are conveyed; being no longer
able to traverse the capillaries, oedema is produced, followed by the
peculiar livid blush. Shakespeare would appear to have had intuitive
perception of the nature of such subtle poison, when he caused the
ghost to describe to Hamlet
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