Say on Herpetology. 259 
in case, as is supposed by some, the poison produces upon the 
system a typhoid action. 
An instance however is related in the Trans. Royal Soc. of 
Lond. of the unsuccessful administration of the vol. alkali in case 
of the bite of a rattle-snake; and an intelligent physician of 
Georgia informed me, that he had applied the same stimulant 
in vain for the cure of the bites of poisonous snakes, but that 
being once stung by a Scorpion, he was instantaneously relieved 
by the topical use of this liquid. He farther related to me a 
ture performed under his observation, by means of the singu- 
lar antidote, which has often been resorted to in case of snake 
bites, that of the application of a living domsetic fowl or other 
bird directly to the wound ; three fowls were applied in this 
instance, of which two died in a few minutes, it was sup osed, 
by the poison extracted from the wound. ‘This account, from 
an observant medical professor, (who may nevertheless have 
been deceived) acquires some additional title to consideration 
by asimilar event which lately occurred at Schooley’s Moun- 
tain, New-Jersey. We are informed from a respectable source, 
ta boy was there bitten by a Copper-head, (Scytale mocke- 
ton.)* The part was immediately painful, became swollen and 
inflamed, and the sufferer had every appearance of having 
teceived a dangerous wound. A portion of the breast of a 
fowl was denudated of feathers, and applied to the wound; ina 
few minutes the fowl died, without having experienced any ap- 
Parent Violence or injurious pressure, from the hand of the ap- 
licant, the breast exhibiting a livid appearance. Another 
living fowl was then laid open by the knife, and the interior of 
the body. placed upon the wound. The wound was subse- 
Wently scarified, and variously administered to. The boy how- 
ever recovered, and.his cure was generally attributed, at least 
Part, to the application of the birds. I am as far as any one 
m relying implicitly upon this mode of treatment, and would 
only resort to it when the part bitten could not be ext rpated, 
and when a cautery was not at hand. Yet it must be confessed, 
Pas terminal caudal plates of this individual were bifid, as in the one of - 
tale’s Museum. 
