318 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



generally during the summer months cause worse 

 symptoms, but in the cooler seasons of the year, even 

 on cooler days of summer, are less dangerous ; which 

 is confirmed by Carver and others. And moreover the 

 greatness of the danger is in some sort determined by 

 the situation of the wound ; oftenest it is the foot or the 

 leg which is bitten, and at times the thickness of the 

 clothing, the boot, or the shoe, affords enough pro- 

 tection. Or it may be the poisonous drops expressed 

 on the entrance of the tooth are lost in the fat tissue 

 without being taken up into the blood. But should 

 the tooth strike a more important blood-vessel or lym- 

 phatick channel, the pernicious poison must be spread 

 more rapidly and surely over the rest of the body. 



The general symptoms which follow the bite have 

 been described at length by Carver and by others be- 

 fore him.* 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 activity of the wounded body, the con- 

 ditions 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 

 15 minutes. And without such a diversity of circum- 

 stances it would be impossible to make anything of the 

 great number of remedies, of all descriptions and often 



* Descriptions of the snake, of the symptoms and remedies 

 are to be found in Kalm's account of the rattle-snake, Schwed. 

 Akad. Abh. XIV, XV; in Linnaeus, Amoenitates acad. Vol. 

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



