242 SNAKES. 



notice of It, and after his bath called on some friends, being 

 to all appearance exceedingly well. He remained about 

 an hour, playing the concertina to amuse the children, and 

 declaring himself never In better health. In about two 

 hours, feeling strange symptoms of suffocation, enlargement 

 of the tongue, and a rigidity of muscles, he sent for a 

 doctor, but still having no suspicion of danger. The next 

 morning a native detected the peculiar symptoms which 



usually follow the bite of a sea snake ; and Captain S , 



then examining the foot which the supposed crab had 

 nipped, found marks of fangs no bigger than mosquito 

 bites on the tendon Achilles near the ankle. Immediate 

 steps were taken, and remedies applied which seemed to 

 promise favourable results for a time ; but in the evening 

 of the third day the victim was seized with spasms, and 

 died, seventy-one hours after the accident. In this case, 

 owing to the sound health of the captain, and no local pain 

 ensuing to warn him, together with the stimulants and 

 remedies applied, and the bite being where absorption was 

 slow, his death was protracted ; otherwise death often occurs 

 within twenty-four hours from that species of snake.^ 



The second case was that of a man who was bitten In 

 the finger by a sea snake, and thinking lightly of It, used 

 no means whatever to arrest the poison, and was dead in 

 four hours. 



In some cases the victim becomes quickly insensible, 

 when, if no aid is near, he never wakes to consciousness. 

 Immediate stimulants revive the patient, and If he can 

 be kept awake, these, with local applications, at once applied^ 



^ Thanatophidia of India, 1st ed. 



