RATTLESNAKE. ' • 8a 



•J 



Terror and amazement feem to lay hold on thefe little animals : they 

 make violent efforts to get away, ftill keeping their eyes fixed on thofe 

 of the fnake ; at length, wearied with their movements, and frightened 

 out of all capacity of knowing the courfe they ought to take, become 

 at length the prey of the expefting devourer, probably in their laft 

 convulfive motion. 



Rattlefnakes are apt to frequent houfes : every domeftic animal on 

 their approach, as if by infhinft, takes alarm ; dogs briftle, and the 

 poultry creft their feathers ; hogs only attack them, feeding on themr 

 with impunity. The brave Indians will alfo eat their flefh : a Man, 

 fays the Mohawk Sachem, eats every thing without diftinflion, dogs, 

 fnakes, frogs, ^c. : it is womanifli to be delicate in the choice of 

 food. , 



The bite of this Serpent is of the moft venomous kind; if the wound 

 is on a vein or artery, death enfues rapid as thought * ; if in a flelhy 

 part, there are hopes of a remedy ; the moft efficacious, if done in time, 

 is either the burning, or the cutting out the part affedled. The fymptoms 

 are, naujea, convulfions, fpitting of blood, and bloody ftools ; lofs of 

 the ufe of the limbs ; fwellings, and difcolored fkin ; fever, deliria ; 

 and, if the cure takes any length of time, difturbed reft, and dreams of 

 the moft horrible kinds f. 



The ufe of the famous Radix Senega, Anicen. Acad. ii. 1 26, or Toly- 

 gala Senega, Sp. PI. ii. 990, which was once fuppofed to have been an 

 effeftual remedy againft the bite of this dreadful reptile is now exploded, 

 but it ftill maintains its character in feveral diforders. Its efficacy, par- 

 ticularly in pleurifies, is moft fully eftabliftied in Virginia: formerly 

 near fifty out of a hundred died of that diftemper, but by the happy 

 life of this root, hardly three out of the fame number have been loft. 



* Kalm, in Sivedi/h Med. Eflays, 282,. f Ph. Tr, yii. 410. &c. xi. 256.- 



Crotalus 



