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SilS JOSEPH EAYRER, K.C.S.I., ETC., 



be going* to India. 1 think I Lave known one or two cases of 

 young ladies refusing eligible matrimonial alliances because they 

 did not like to go to a place so full of snakes. No doubt in India 

 there is great mortality from snake bite ; but I was a medical 

 officer in India for thirty years, and at civil stations for sixteen or 

 seventeen years ; in Eastern Bengal, abounding in snakes, and at 

 Nagpore in the Central Provinces where there are plenty of ruins 

 and holes abounding in snakes, and I had not, during my thirty 

 years' experience, to treat a case of snake bite. No doubt many 

 natives were bitten, but snake bite is so fatal that the cases do not 

 come in for treatment. I have had snake-bitten bodies brought in 

 by the police for examination, and I have been able to find the 

 snake bite, and to prove that it was the cause of death. The only 

 case of snake-bite in a European I can recollect was in Lahore. 

 During the last year of my life in India a party of soldiers encamped 

 in the neighbourhood of Lahore, one of whom while in bed put 

 out his hand, touched a part of the tent and immediately called out 

 that he was bitten. His comrades rose and, running to his assist- 

 ance, killed the snake, which was an Eclris Carinata — it was smaller 

 than the one shown on the diagram. They promptly put a liga- 

 ture on the man's arm and I believe he was treated with ammonia. 

 I had no part in the treatment ; but I believe the man lived without 

 symptoms for two days with the ligature on his arm. They then 

 began to think it was a false alarm, and took off the ligature, 

 fearing the hand would mortify. Immediately the ligature was 

 removed the poison began to act and the man died shortly after. 

 That shows how fatal and irremediable are the effects of snake- 

 bite. I have seen very few snakes except in the hands of snake 

 charmers, and I think I could count all the poisonous snakes that 

 I have seen at large, on the fingers of my two hands. The snake 

 I have referred to was, I think, eight feet long — I believe that is 

 the largest cobra Sir Joseph has ever seen, is it not ? 



Sir Joseph Fatrer. — It was not more than six feet. 



Dr. Beatson. — Sir Joseph doubtless knows best but I certainly 

 thought it was more than six feet. — But for Sir Joseph Fayrer 

 having written his book on snakes, I think probably that snake 

 would be living now, and would have killed many hundred 

 people. I do not know how old it was, but the snake man who 

 caught it, and gave it up to me with great reluctance, said it was 

 probably a hundred years old and might be two hundred. 



