POISONS, POISONOUS SNAKES AND INSECTS, ETC. 393 



see, where many colts and horses are almost ruined by it 

 during the months of August and September. 



The treatment for all external poisons of this class is that 

 just prescribed for the poison oak — frequent washing with 

 the decoction of yellow-root, or golden seal, with nightly 

 anointments with grease. If, as sometimes happens in cases 

 of severe poisoning, the legs swell and the joints become 

 stiff, wash them repeatedly with hot salt and water, and rub 

 them well with the hand or a brush. 



ANIMAL POISONS. 



Snake Bites. — I^ature has populated the Weatern Continent 

 with many varieties of serpents and poisonous insects. Some 

 of the Western and South-western States, especially those 

 bordering upon the Mississippi River, are greatly infested 

 with them. In West Tennessee, where we formerly resided — 

 a land of thickets and underbrush — the rattlesnake abounds, 

 and is often found in the yard, sometimes under the very 

 door-step, and has been killed in the log out-houses and 

 stables. Besides this venomous creature, there are others on 

 all the tributaries of the great river ; and the whole country 

 on the lower portion of the latter's course are tenanted not 

 only with the rattlesnake, but also the spreading adder, the 

 moccasin, the cotton-mouth, and the black and water vipers. 



It is not often that the horse is bitten by a snake, yet it 

 sometimes occurs. Four or five cases are all that we ever 

 met in a practice at the South of nearly twenty years 

 Nearly all serpents give warning to any animal approaching 

 them; and the horse, unless his hearing is impaired, never 

 fails to take the alarm and flee from danger. Of those that 

 are unquestionably poisonous, not all are equally so, the 

 venom of some being much more active than that of others. 

 Otherwise, the quality of the virus seems essentially the sam< 

 in each, and hence a uniform course of treatment is to be 

 practiced for counteracting their effects. 



The common and most effectual antidote is large potations 

 of proof whiskey — half a pint, every hour, in warm water, 



