158 Miscellanies. 
then a drop of prussic acid was put upon each vessel ; the effects 
were instantaneous,—a few drops of a solution of chlorine were let 
fall on one of the crural veins—the other animal was left alone. The 
first was as immediately recovered as it was injured; the second died 
directly. The first felt no inconvenience, after some hours, except 
from the wound. Endeavors were then made to kill him, by putting 
prussic acid upon the eye and upon the crural.vein of the opposite 
side; but the animal only felt temporary inconvenience and a few 
convulsive movements, and was very quickly at ease. Chlorine, 
then, previously administered, is an effectual antidote to prussic acid. 
Chlorides of lime and soda were found to possess no corresponding 
powers, being quite inert as antagonists to the hydro-cyanie acid.— 
(Ann. de Chimie.)—Jdem. / 
15. Common salt a remedy for animal poison.—The Rev. J. 6. 
Fischer, formerly a missionary in South America, says he “ actually 
and effectually cured all kinds of very painful and dangerous se 
pents’ bites, after they had been inflicted for many hours,” by the 
application of common salt, moistened with water and bound upo 
the wound, “without any bad effect ever occurring afterwards.” 
“J, for my part,” says he, “never had an opportunity to meet with 
amad dog, or any person who was bitten with a mad dog. I cannot 
therefore speak from experience, as to hydrophobia, but that I have 
cured serpents’ bites always, without fail, 1 can declare in truth.” 
He then cites a case from a newspaper, in which a person was bitten 
by a dog, which in a few hours died raving mad. Salt was immed! 
ately rubbed for some time into the wound, and the person never eX 
perienced any inconvenience from the bite. 
Mr. Fischer was induced to try the above remedy, from 4 stale 
ment made by the late Bishop Loskiell in his history of the Missions 
of the Moravian Church in N. America, purporting that certain tribes 
of Indians, had not the least fear of the bite of serpents, relying upo 
the application of salt as so certain a remedy, that some 0 them 
would suffer the bite for the sake of a glass of rum.—Jdem. 
16. Tenacity of Vegetable Life-—Mr. Houlton produced a bul 
bous root to the Medico-Botanical Society, which was discovered ol 
the hand of an Egyptian Mummy, in which it had probably remaine 
for two thousand years. It germinated on exposure to the atmoe 
phere ; when placed in carth it grew with great rapidity. —Jdem- 
