The Zoologist— October, 1869. 1877 



the poison could have been ejected as easily as into a wound on man 

 or beast. The best and most readily procured vessel wherein to keep a 

 snake is a common earthen chutty, against the smooth sides of which 

 they may dart their fangs, but without the poison being ejected and 

 thus lost. 



" 4th. There is no truth in the virtue attributed to the snake-stone. 

 — I fully concur in this opinion : I have seen numbers of these stones 

 of every shade and colour, but have never heard of a cure being 

 effected by the use of them ; and I have heard the same thing from 

 the mouth of a person competent to give an unbiassed opinion. When 

 a cure is said to have been effected by these means, the patient and 

 the operator are confederates and the snake a tame one, with, as a 

 matter of course, its fangs extracted. 



" Much has been written on snake-bites and their cure, but I am 

 afraid that we are not nearer any antidotes than those in vogue in the 

 days of Russel and others, who have fully studied the subject. These 

 remedies were, and are, free excision of the part, the application of 

 caustics, and the use of ammonia internally in any shape — Eau de Lua 

 being perhaps the most convenient form. May not, however, the 

 rapid death that occurs in some cases be attributed to the fangs 

 having pierced a vein or artery, and thus have caused a quicker cir- 

 culation of the venom through the system ? I have heard of persons 

 dying within half an hour of being bitten, and seen one who, being 

 bitten at a distance of some five miles, yet walked in with assistance 

 and died in the course of six or seven hours afterwards. The man 

 was a snake-charmer, and had caught the animal two or three days 

 before it bit him : he was confident that he would recover, having 

 taken some nostrum of his own — with what result I have shown. The 

 snake which caused this death was not of the usual colour of the Sind 

 cobras, which are of a dull leaden hue : this one was light-coloured, 

 approaching to yellow. The last I saw of the reptile was in a bottle, 

 snugly stowed away in white liquor in the Kurrachee Museum, where 

 it may be to this day." — X. 



I will conclude this appendix with an account of some cases of 

 treatment of snake-bite with ammonia, and Dr. Fayrer's exposure of 

 some Indian remedies. The former bears date January 4lh, 1869, 

 and the latter February, 1869; together with Col. Shaver's experi- 

 ments, which led to the latter. 



