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 tlie 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-cyanic acid. — 

 (Ann. de Chimie.) — Idem. " 



15. Common salt a remedy for animal poison. — The Rev. J. G. 



Fischer, formerly a missionary in South America, says he " actually 

 and effectually cured all kinds of very painful and dangerous ser- 

 pents' bites, after they had been inflicted for many hours," by the 

 application of common salt, moistened with water and bound upon 

 the wound, " without any bad effect ever occurring afterwards." 



"I, for my part," says he, "never had an opportunity to meet with 

 a mad 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, I 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 immedi- 

 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 a state- 

 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 upon 

 the application of salt as so certain a remedy, that some of them 

 would suffer the bite for the sake of a glass of Tum.—Idem. 



16. Tenacity of Vegetabh Life. — Mr. Houlton produced a bul- 

 bous root to the Medico-Botanical Society, which was discovered in 

 the hand of an Egyptian Mummy, in which it had probably remained 

 for two thousand years. It germinated on exposure to the atmos- 

 phere ; when placed in earth it grew with great rapidity.— /c/em. 



