ANTIDOTES. 199 
best knew how to use, the fight began; how long it lasted, 
whether any of the rules of the prize ring were broken, never 
“vot into the papers,” but the son of the smith coming to the 
shop found the fallen knight of the hammer on the ground, 
and his snakeship wound about his neck, head erect, and 
smeared with the blood which was flowing from the wounds 
on the smith’s face; the boy alarmed his mother, who entered 
the lists with a hickory broom-handle, and aided by an elder 
son succeeded in killing the snake. The father, who was bitten 
in many places ‘about the head, neck, and breast, was removed 
to the house, and after the application of herb-tea and the 
whole list of household remedies, was restored to conscious- 
ness after three or four hours had elapsed ; but for years after- 
wards he still suffered pains in the joints of a rheumatic na- 
ture, which made him almostshelpless, and were followed by 
an epistaxis of three or four days’ duration. These pains, &e., 
were felt invariably at the period of the full moon. 
I met him in 1854 in Western North Carolina, and had the 
preceding statement from his own lips. A few doses of the 
B. Crotalus horridus, 1st decimal potency, 10 drops in 4 oz. 
aque destillate, a tablespoonful night and morning, cured 
him radically of all his sufferings. 
This was an extreme case, but one can hardly imagine the 
“ Alcohol treatment” applied under more advantageous cir- 
cumstances if the snake’s poison had its deadly principle fully 
developed at the time of its injection. 
Dr. 5. Weir Mitchell reduces the list of antidotes which still 
hold repute to: Ammonia, Olive oil, Arsenic (as the Tanjore 
pill), Bibron’s antidote (Bromine), and alcoholic stimuli. 
Although Ammonia has only proved worthy of note in 
the cases cited by Prof. Halford, yet the latter. feels sanguine 
it must prove efficacious in many cases. In my own experi- 
ence it has proven uniformly unsuccessful. Dr. Fayrer’s ex- 
