200 Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis. 



The late Dr. E. D. Cope reports the following case : — ■ 

 "A Swede at Oakland, Orange Co., Fla., found an Elaps, 

 and because of its beautiful color he caught it and tried 

 to put it into a bottle of alcohol. The snake bit him, but 

 the wound was not large, and as it did not swell he did 

 not care much about it at first. After a while he was taken 

 very sick, went to bed, asked for a physician, and drank 

 whisky; but it was then too late. He died the next morn- 

 ing, about twelve hours after the snake had bitten him. 

 During the last hours he was unconscious, but before that 

 he suffered most excruciating pains." 



Dr. Thomas Kearney of San Antonio, Texas, relates a 

 case as follows: — An infant child of Mr. Alexander 

 Stringer was playing in the yard, and being attracted by 

 the bright colors of a coral snake, grasped it near the 

 middle. The screams of the child brought its parents to 

 its relief, but too late; the snake had done it work. The 

 child lingered in great agony until the following morning 

 and died. The snake, as described to me was about 18 

 inches long. (Stejneger.) 



Dr. Leonard Stejneger in his Poisonous Snakes of 

 North America gives the following: — These cases were 

 reported by Dr. J. HarfT, who wrote that two men were 

 bitten, one died in 24 hours while the other one recovered 

 after an almost fatal prostration of thirty-six hours dura- 

 tion. 



1 ' The fatal case came under my observation a few min- 

 utes before death occurred under the symptoms of paral- 

 ysis of the heart. The second case was brought soon 

 enough for me to try stimulants — whiskey, hypodermic 

 injections of ammonia and fomentations of digitalis leaves 

 over the region of the kidneys. The man, a strong young 

 Scotchman, recovered in three days, and felt only a feel- 

 ing of tingling in his extremities for some time after. 

 Both men kept the snakes as pets, and the last one used 

 to put his finger in the animal's mouth very often to show 

 how tame it was. One day he put it in a little deeper 



