OF THE GLANDS. 51 



and laborious ; the patient experiences a burning thirst ; 

 nausea and vomiting quickly succeed, often followed by 

 great distress and faintings, which, joined to the most 

 violent pain, deprives the sufferer of his intellectual facul- 

 ties. Livid spots surrounding the w^ound are the precur- 

 sors of gangrene, which spreads to other parts of the body, 

 and causes death after a longer or shorter interval. It is 

 fortunate that the bite of serpents, even in tropical coun- 

 tries, is not always mortal ; yet the individuals who have 

 been bitten perceive after their recovery, even through 

 their lives, periodic sufferings, or are affected with 

 partial or complete palsy of the affected parts, or even 

 experience a continual disturbance of their intellectual 

 faculties. 



We shall recollect to enumerate, when treating of the 

 errors in which the history of serpents is enveloped, some of 

 the pretended antidotes against the bites of snakes : a num- 

 ber of other remedies have been tried, of which the efficacy 

 has been vaunted by some, denied by others, and fuially 

 shewn to be useless by subsequent experiments. Every 

 country produces persons wdio pretend to possess the art 

 of curing the bites of serpents ; but we should distrust su- 

 perstitious persons, most frequently impostors, whose whole 

 knowledge is founded on empiricism. Every tribe of the nume- 

 rous races of men of both Americas have a different mode of 

 treating maladies of this nature ; but the plants of which 

 the one tribe vaunts the virtues, are unkno^vn or rejected 

 by the rest. In the villages of central Europe it is chiefly 

 herdsmen and shepherds who, professing the healing art, 

 consider it nothing above their skill to cure the bites of 

 vipers. In India and in Egypt this art is the special occu- 

 pation of one caste, at this day as ignorant as were their 

 ancestors in classic times. Instead of transcribing here 

 wiiat has been wi'itten on this subject, I shall confine my- 

 self to point out the remedies which have been most suc- 

 cessfully employed and generally recognised. 



The first 'precaution to use, when one has been bitten by 

 a venomous serpent, is to clean the bitten part, in order 

 to prevent the poison adhering to the skin from entering 

 the scarifications, which it is judicious to make immediately : 



