Say on Herpetology, 259 



in case, as is supposed by some, the poison produces upon the 

 system a typhoid action. 



An instance however is related in the Trans. Royal Soc. of 

 Lond. of the unsuccessful administration of the vol. alkali in case 

 of the bite of a Rattle-snake ; and an intelligent physician of 

 Georgia informed me, that he had applied the same stimulant 

 in vain for the cure of the bites of poisonous snakes, but tliat 

 being once stung by a Scorpion, he was instantaneously relieved 

 by the topical use of this liquid. He further related to me a 

 cure performed under his observation, by means of the singu- 

 lar antidote, which has often been resorted to in case of snake 

 bites, that of the application of a living domestic fowl or other 

 bird directly to the wound ; three fowls were applied in this 

 instance, of which two died in a few minutes, it was supposed, 

 by the poison extracted from the wound. This account, from 

 an observant medical professor, (who may nevertheless have 

 been deceived) acquires some additional title to consideration 

 by a similar event which lately occurred at Schooley's Moun- 

 tain, New-Jersey. We are informed from a respectable source, 

 that a boy was there bitten by a Copper-head, (Scytale mocke- 

 son.)* The part was immediately painful, became swollen 

 and inflamed, and the sufferer had every appearance of having 

 received a dangerous wound. A portion of the breast of a 

 fowl was denudated of feathers, and applied to the wound ; in a 

 few minutes the fowl died, without having experienced any 

 apparent violence or injurious pressure, from the hand of the 

 apphcant, the breast exhibiting a livid appearance. Another 

 living fowl was then laid open by the knife, and the interior of 

 the body placed upon the wound. The wound was subse- 

 quently scarified, and variously administered to. The boy how- 

 ever recovered, and his cure was generally attributed, at least 

 in part, to the application of the birds. I am as far as any one 

 from relying implicitly upon this mode of treatment, and would 

 only resort to it when the part bitten could not be extirpated, 

 and when a cautery was not at hand. Yet it must be confessed, 



* The termiaal caudal plates of this individual were bifid, at in the ont of 

 Peak's Museum. 



21* 



