THE VENOMS AND THEIR REMEDIES. 549 



During a sojourn in Iowa some years ago, when wild and 

 uncleared lands formed the ' streets ' of the town in which 

 I was staying — Lyons on the Mississippi river, and as lovely 

 a spot as artists and botanists can wish to revel in — it was 

 by no means an infrequent occurrence to hear of rattlesnake 

 bites. 'What was done to the man?' 'Is he alive?' were 

 questions naturally asked. 



' He drank a quart of raw whisky, and got dead drunk.' 

 Generally a quart had the desired effect — that is, of causing 

 intoxication. Persons unused to intoxicants might be affected 

 by a less quantity, but so violent is the combat between 

 venom and whisky that a large dose must be swallowed 

 before any effects at all are produced. In the southern and 

 hotter States it was similarly used. Indeed, a planter himself 

 told me that Sambo would sometimes prick his hand or foot 

 with a thorn, and crying out 'Rattlesnake!' fall into well- 

 assumed agonies, in his preference for a spirituous somni- 

 ferousness to cotton-picking. But w^hen the fraud was 

 detected and less enticing remedies were adopted, rattlesnake 

 or copperhead bites became less frequent. I heard of a man 

 in Nevada, George Terhune, a teamster (I give his name, 

 having every reason to believe the truth of the story), who 

 was bitten in the hand by a rattlesnake while stooping to 

 reach some water out of a spring. The man was alone and 

 far away from human habitations. It was an instinctive and 

 momentary business to first kill the snake ; then rushing to 

 his waggon, he drew the bung from a keg of whisky and 

 took a large draught of the contents. After swallowing as 

 much as he could, he took some tobacco from his pocket, 

 saturated that with whisky, and applied this poultice to his 



