522 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XX. 



No. XVIII.— A FATAL CASE OF VIPERINE POISONING. 



Our Secretary has forwarded me the detailed notes of a snake-bite 

 casualty which ended in the death of Mr. W. N. Neale lately near Broach. 

 These notes were furnished by the Assistant Surgeon and the Civil Surgeon, 

 who attended the case, and from these I extract the following information. 

 Mr. Neale was bitten below the inner bone of the right ankle on the night 

 of the 12th of May by a snake which he saw and described as being about 

 two feet long. He was wearing socks at the time. He came indoors, 

 applied a ligature above the ankle, and unable to persuade his servants 

 to cut open the site of the injury had to do so himself, making two super- 

 ficial incisions with a razor, and then he applied crystals of permanganate 

 of potash. From the notes I conclude that the incisions, and the applica- 

 tion of the salt were not what a Surgeon would consider at all satisfactorily 

 performed. 



He passed a restless night, and in the morning sent for a local snake 

 charmer, who grasped the tissues as well as he could two or three times 

 with his teeth, and' sucked with the idea of forcibly extracting the poison. 

 Being in great pain he sent for an Assistant Surgeon, 1 1 miles distant, who 

 arrived in the afternoon of the loth instant. He found two fine punctures 

 •J an inch apart at the seat of the injury, one being very slight ; the other 

 was still bleeding and the foot was enormously swollen and discoloured 

 greenish-blue. Mr. Neale was in great agony. 



On the 14th instant the patient developed bleeding from the gums. He 

 appears to have remained in much the same state till the 18th instant 

 when he was carried to Tankari, and admitted into hospital, at 4 a.m. on 

 the 19th. His wounds had then healed, and the foot had completely 

 subsided to normal proportions, but there was swelling of the right calf 

 and thigh. Later, pain in the right groin shooting into the abdomen was 

 experienced, and the abdomen became distended, painful and tender. 

 There were blood stained patches and spots in the skin of the arms and 

 chest, and a large extravasation formed over the right buttock, and bled 

 freely externally. His gums were still bleeding. He had no fever, but 

 his respiration was hurried, and his pulse weak, and frequent. An enema 

 relieved the abdominal symptoms, the stool being very dark (probably 

 from admixture with blood). 



On the 20th he had very severe pain in the right hip, which became 

 swollen, and he could not bear to have it touched or moved. He was de- 

 cidedly weak as shown by his pulse and at 2 a.m. had a fainting fit. He 

 then complained of burning pain all over the body, and still had special 

 pain in the right calf and thigh, but his abdominal pain was less and the 

 swelling reduced. He vomitted three times during the day. Bleeding from 

 the buttock had stopped, and the bleeding from the gums was slight. He 

 had another fainting fit at t> p.m. but rallied again, At 10-30 that night 



