108 PHYSIOLOGY AND TOXICOLOGY 



areolar spaces. The skin still adhered to the biceps flexor muscle in the arm and 

 to the flexor muscles in the forearm, by a dark-colored cellular tissue. Elsewhere 

 in the arm and forearm, the skin and muscles fi'om the axilla down were separated 

 by a dark fluid of an offensive odor, containing sloughs of the dead cellular tissue 

 floating in it. " The muscles had their natural appearance everywhere, except on 

 the surface which was next to the abscess. Beyond the limits of the abscess, blood 

 was extravasated in the cellular membrane, and this appearance was observable on 

 the right side of the back as far as the loins, and on the right side of the chest 

 over the serratus major anticus muscle." 



Dr. Horner's case occurred in Philadelphia, in the month of July, and was ex- 

 amined four and a half hours after death. M. Pihoreldoes not give the exact date 

 of his case. It took place at Rouen, and from various allusions in the text of his 

 report, it is plain that the weather was cold. The examination did not occur until 

 five days after death, but the cold was so great that the body is said to have been 

 in excelle^it preservation. Sir E. Home's case occurred in London, during the 

 month of October. It was examined sixteen hours after death. 



Antidotes. — It might naturally be supposed that the question of antidotes and 

 remedies would be considered fully and experimentally, at the close of this Essay. 

 Such, indeed, was my intention when I began the present investigation, but it soon 

 became clear to me that a just and useful experimental testing of this matter was 

 out of the question until I became thoroughly acquainted with the habits and 

 movements of the Rattlesnake, the precise character of the venom, and its various 

 modes of acting on the system. Portions of this information were to be found 

 scattered through books and journals, but these disjointed studies were incomplete, 

 and it soon grew more and more apparent that a consideration of the entire sub- 

 ject, and a certain familiarity with the powers of the poison must still, of necessity, 

 precede an investigation of antidotes. Impressed with this idea, I have endeavored, 

 in the present paper, to render more easy the still difficult task of examining the 

 therapeutics of Crotalus bite. 



It was w^ell said by a distinguished physician, that there are always a great num- 

 ber of medicines for those diseases which are either very easy or very difficult to 

 cure. Such has been the fate of Crotalus poisoning to a remarkable degree, for 

 not only have physicians exhausted their ingenuity in the discovery of antidotes, 

 but the popular medicine of log-cabin, or rough border clearings, has contributed 

 to its strange therapeutics, some twenty or thirty plants which owe their reputation 

 to Indian traditions, and to other, and often accidental, circumstances. 



Each one of these remedies has acquired a local credit ; has passed from the 

 people to the physicians ; has seemed to cure in their hands, as it had done in those 

 of the good wife or herb doctor, and finally, after going the rounds of the daily press 

 and the medical journals, has died a natural death, or received a fatal blow at the 

 bedside of some too deeply injured patient. Accepted upon slight evidence, and 

 thrown aside upon equally feeble proof of inutility, such has been the career of 

 the many and famous antidotes, which in this and other lands have embarrassed 

 the therapeutics of these much-dreaded injuries. 



While, however, the larger part of the reputed constitutional remedies are 



