314 ON THE POISON OF THE RATTLESNAKE. 



certain preparation of the body: they assume an offensive 

 attitude previously to striking a blow, and they seldom or ne- 

 ver make an effort to strike when once secured by the hand. 



The Abbe Fontana has remarked that the poison of the 

 viper is not fatal to its own body, or to that of its own spe- 

 cies when bitten ; the contrary of this position is stated on 

 respectable authority to be the case as regards the Crotalus — 

 a result that might have been anticipated from the well known 

 fact that Rattlesnakes, congregated together in any number, 

 never inflict a wound on each other. 



Among the most remarkable peculiarities observed in the 

 economy of this animal is its power of abstinence. An indi- 

 vidual lived more than two years in the Philadelphia Mu- 

 seum, totally deprived of food. Others in the same institu- 

 tion have been observed united for a considerable time in the 

 act of coition, and subsequently to bring forth young in a 

 living state. In one instance I have witnessed a female with 

 fourteen young at one birth, which is far from being to the 

 same degree prolific as some of the oviparous Colubers. 



In the present stage of the investigation, had I occasion to 

 treat a wound inflicted by a poisonous reptile, my faith in the 

 Hkraeeum venosum, as a cure, is not such as to induce me to 

 resort to its employment, to the exclusion of the less equivocal 

 means of suction, pressure, or ligature. Some very interest- 

 ing experiments, which establish the superiority of the last 

 mentioned methods, have recently been made by C. W. Pen- 

 nock, M.D., and will be published in the American Journal 

 of the Medical Sciences for May 1828. 



