The Rattlesnake Cure of Elephantiasis. 137 



in the province of southern Rio Grande, fifty years of age, 

 had long been afflicted with morphea (^Elephantiasis Grceco- 

 rum\ and had already passed four years in the Lazarus Hos- 

 pital at Rio, when one day, worn out with his loathsome 

 malady, he resolved as a last chance of being delivered from 

 his dread disease, to submit to the bite of a rattlesnake. 

 All the warnings and representations of the physicians, who 

 entertained well-founded doubts as to the remedial efficacy of 

 so dangerous a remedy, were disregarded. Marianno betook 

 himself to a house in the Rua da Imperatriz, the occupant of 

 which possessed a living rattlesnake, and there in the presence 

 of numerous witnesses declared, signing at the same time a 

 document to the same efi'ect, that what he was about to do he 

 did of his own free will, without any influence on the part of 

 strangers, and that he assumed to himself the entire responsi- 

 bility of his own deed. Marianno was of middling stature 

 and athletic build ; his entire skin was covered with rugosities, 

 but without any appearance of ulceration, while his face was 

 frightfully disfigured. The points of his fingers, moreover, had 

 entirely lost their form, the skin readily peeling off from 

 them. 



The daring sufferer opened the box in which lay the deadly 

 reptile, and roughly seized it ; but it at first attempted to escape, 

 as though it too w^as disgusted at the horrible object before 

 it. When, however, it felt itself once more squeezed, the snake 

 turned round in self-defence, and bit the man on the finger. 

 Marianno was sensible neither of the puncture of the teeth. 



