302 EXPERIMENTS MADE ON THE 



The remedy which next claims our attention, has been 

 considered as of sufficient importance to demand legislative 

 enactment. It appears that some years ago, the State As- 

 sembly of South Carolina purchased from a Negro, for an an- 

 nuity of one hundred pounds for life and his freedom, the 

 secret of his cure for the bite of the Rattlesnake. This 

 proved to be the " Jffisma plmtago," or water-plantain. 

 Many of the members are said to have witnessed the effi- 

 cacy of the remedy in the person of the Negro, who stripped 

 himself naked and jumped into a tub, containing many of these 

 venomous snakes, and received numerous wounds. He cured 

 himself by swallowing one tablespoonful of the expressed 

 juice of the Alisma plantago, and repeated the dose at inter- 

 vals, until the effects of the poison were counteracted. An 

 essay was published on this subject in the sixth volume of 

 the Technical Repository of 1824, by C. Whitlaw,Esq.*, who 

 states that the common plantain has been used by mistake, 

 to which error he attributes all the reputed failures. 



My friend Major N. A. Ware informs me that in Florida 

 and Alabama, a species of Pedicularia, or " Louse-plant" is of 

 considerable repute as an antidote to poisons of this nature. 

 Sweet oil has also been famous as a specific in similar cases. 

 A number of experiments were performed by a viper catcher 

 before the Royal Society of London, in order to prove its 

 efficacy, some account of which was published in the early 

 numbers of the New York Medical Repository. 



But passing over this remedy and many others of a similar 

 nature, we come to the consideration of the plant which was 



The following- extract from Mr Whitlaw's Essay is probably sufficient to de- 

 stroy his authority altogether among medical men, — though the above statement 

 concerning the experiments I believe to be historical fact. 



" The Specific action of the poison appears to be chiefly confined to the muscles : 

 after the infliction of the bite, powerful muscular contractions take place over the 

 whole body, the muscles are highly inflamed, a coldness and corrugation of the 

 skin surround the part which was bitten, and violent spasms resembling teta- 

 nus supervene followed by mortification. A friend of mine at Savannah died in 

 consequence of being bitten by a snake in the hand: when they took hold of his 

 arm to place him in the coffin, the arm came off at the shoulder joint." — Vid 

 Technical Repos. vol. iv. p. 258. 



