SCHOPF AMERICAN TRAVELS. 



thicum; 'and Cleome dodecandra, which is praised as a vermifuge. 

 A new species of the Parnassia, which I discovered about New York, 

 grows here plentifully in swampy meadows. Among trees there was 

 conspicuous a group of beautiful larches, called Tamarac; they use 

 here a drink made from the bark, for swollen feet after fevers. 



Maryland. 



[I, 484-494.] Dr. Fisher at Fredericktown (also Apothecary and 

 at the same time Sheriff) told the following remarkable story, and all 

 those present confirmed it. A farmer, Jacob Sim, living eight miles 

 from the town, was eleven years ago in the month of July bitten by 

 a rattlesnake. Every year since, in the same month of July, he has 

 fallen ill and feverish, the skin over his whole body becoming spotted 

 blue and yellow. Carver observed something like this, and mentions, 

 that it happens commonly that after the bite of a rattlesnake not only 

 the wounded part grows swollen, but the swelling extends gradually 

 over the whole body, and makes it of as variegated a color as the snake ; 

 and further he speaks, as if certain, of an annual return of the symp- 

 toms shown in the first instance.* Everywhere I informed myself 

 of the rattlesnake and the copper-belly (also called moccasin-snake), 

 the bite of which is quite as poisonous. The different accounts given 

 by the country people are of one accord, that these noxious beasts are 

 much less numerous than they once were. 



The general symptoms which follow the bite have been described 

 at length by Carver and by others before him.f The shivering which 

 immediately follows the wound may well be the effect of fright. Were 

 the circumstances not so various, the efficacy of the poison, the ac- 

 tivity of the wounded body, the conditions of the wound itself, and 

 the season of the year, it could not be easily explained why so many 

 are bitten without the least ill consequences, others recover after more 

 or less significant symptoms, and others (but rarely) succumb on the 

 spot. Dr. Garden saw a negro bitten in Carolina fall dead after fif- 

 teen minutes. And without such a diversity of circumstances it would 

 be impossible to make anything:' of the great number of remedies, of 

 all descriptions and often apparently trifling, which by one and another 

 are recommended as most excellent for the snake-bite. It will not be 

 surperfluous to set down here the sundry remedies for the snake-bite 

 which in different parts of the country were pointed out to me and 

 praised. 



They are as follows: Collinsonia canadensis (Horse-weed), Cu- 

 nila mariana (Penny-royal), Cynoglossum virginiciim, Hydro phyllum 



* Carver's Travels, English edit. p. 449, 450. 



t Descriptions of the snake, of the symptoms and remedies, are to be found in Kalm's 

 account of the rattle-snake, Schived. akad. abh. XIV, XV; in Linnaeus, Amoenitates acad. 

 Viol. II, Diss. XXII. Radix. Senega; and elsewhere. 



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