THE VENOMS AND THEIR REMEDIES. 551 



four hours, during which time he had had two quarts of 

 whisky in one night, and renewed as the pulse fell, besides 

 red pepper and other stimulants.^ 



In South Africa, too, the alcoholic remedies seem to be 

 successfully adopted, so far as we may judge by occasional 

 reports of them which find their way into print. In the 

 Field of January 14th, 1882, a Mr. Walter Nightingale 

 records that a boy of fifteen, bitten by a puff adder, drank 

 two bottles of brandy before it had any effect ; and a little 

 girl two years old, bitten in the hand by a 'horned viper' 

 (which might have been a LopJiopJirys or Viper a nasicornis)^ 

 had administered to her brandy and milk in occasional 

 doses without any visible effects, until a whole bottle of 

 brandy had been thus swallowed ! The child recovered ; 

 and the force of the argum.ent seemed to rest on the 

 astounding quantity of strong spirit that could be taken 

 to overcome the venom without producing intoxication. 

 Under ordinary circumstances, a wine-glassful of brandy 

 would have made either of those children tipsy, yet the 

 infant of two years did not reel under a whole bottleful, 

 and the boy of fifteen under two bottles full — -a quantity 

 that would have killed many outright. 



Yet whisky is not an 'antidote' chemically, any more 

 than is ammonia, or tobacco, or artificial respiration, which 

 latter has been tried with success by Drs. Vincent Richards 

 and Lauder Bruton. So rapidly destructive to every vital 

 function is snake venom, that anything that will keep life 

 going until the poison is eliminated is desirable ; and what 

 would themselves be poisons in other cases here act only as 



* Smithsonian Contributions. Washington, D.C., i860. 



