226 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



than it is long. The transverse bone is proportion- 

 ately enlarged and the maxillary is like the head 

 of a hammer at the end of it. It bears the fang 

 above, there being no solid teeth behind it. The 

 effect of the snake opening its mouth is to 

 guide forward the quadrate, which acts on the 

 maxillary by means of the intermediate bar so that 

 the lower side, containing the fang, is pushed 

 forward and the latter can then be erected at the 

 snake's pleasure by means of certain muscles. This 

 movement gives the power of altering the position 

 of the fang ninety degrees. When at rest, with the 

 mouth closed, the fang is resting with its point 

 turned backwards along the jaw towards the angle 

 of the mouth, but when the mouth is open the fang 

 can be erected at right angles to its former position. 



In the sea-snakes, the maxillary is comparatively 

 long, and there are two fangs with solid teeth 

 behind. There is, in consequence, hardly any 

 power of movement of the fangs at all. 



A word as to the effect of the poison and the 

 treatment. Generally speaking we may say that 

 the poison acts upon the nerves, and that the 

 patient dies of nervous exhaustion. Hundreds of 

 antidotes have been tried, most of which have 

 proved of no use whatever. Indeed, so little effect 

 have they in India, and so eager were people there 

 to proclaim, without sufficient trial, that they had 

 discovered an infallible remedy, that the late Dr. 

 Shortt, of Madras, who experimented for years on 

 snake poison, had, at last, to require a deposit of 

 fifty rupees before he would undertake to try the so- 

 called remedy. This had the effect of checking the 

 supply of pretended antidotes. The only remedy at 

 present found to be at all efficacious is strychnine. 

 This has proved successful in Australia, where the 

 snakes are nearly all poisonous, and nearly all 

 belong to the sub-family of the Elapinas, that to 

 which the cobra belongs, but their poison varies in 

 its intensity, and none of them appear to possess 

 a poison as fatal to man as is the cobra's. There 

 are few cases on record of men recovering, into 

 whose veins the poison of this snake has been 

 injected. All the cases of so-called recovery are 

 probably due to the fact that the snake has bitten 

 without injecting poison. 



As to the remedial action to be taken, it must be 

 remembered that rapidity of application is essential. 

 In man the circulation of the blood is completed in 

 from twenty to thirty seconds. It is, of course 

 slower in the capillaries, and proportionally more 

 rapid in the larger veins and arteries. If then a 

 man be bitten and the poison injected into one of 

 the larger vessels death will come rapidly. If, 

 however, the poison has only reached the capillaries 

 the action will not be so rapid. Sir J. Fayrer 

 recommends heroic treatment in cases of snake-bite, 

 such as deep cutting of the wound, burning, and so 

 on. All this will probably be found useless. The 



best chance for the sufferer is to suck the wound, if 

 he can possibly get at it, and, as far as possible, to 

 stop the circulation at the part by tying a ligature 

 as tightly as possible near it. Medical aid should 

 then be sought as soon as possible. The natives of 

 India pin their faith on the efficacy of ' ' munthrums ' ' 

 or charms. One once informed me that his uncle 

 had been cured in this way. On enquiry, it appeared 

 that his uncle had been bitten, but that he had not 

 seen the snake that bit him. He was first taken 

 to a woman charmer, who said she could do 

 nothing for him. He was then made to walk 

 twenty miles to another snake doctor. Arrived 

 there he became unconscious, but soon recovered. 

 Now, this is a case which clearly shows that if the 

 man was bitten by a poisonous snake no poison 

 was injected. For had it been he certainly could 

 not have walked twenty miles. The symptons were 

 due simply to imagination, which, it is well known, 

 will cause such to appear. The man would have 

 recovered without treatment of any sort, but his 

 faith in the snake doctor did away with all the 

 harmful symptoms produced by his imagination. 

 As to the snake doctors themselves, they have a 

 firm belief in their own powers, and are not actuated 

 by mercenary motives in professing to cure their 

 patients, for, as a rule, they do not receive any pay 

 for their treatment. 



Trevandrum ; October yth, 1895. 



A NEW BRITISH MOTH. 



T EPIDOPTERISTS usually look forward each 

 ^~* year to the addition of at least one species to 

 the British faunal list. This season it is a handsome 

 addition. On October 26th last, Mr. Thomas 

 Salvage, of Arlington, in Sussex, which is a few miles 

 north of Eastbourne, took in his garden a female 

 specimen of Mesogona acetosellcs, Fab., and not know- 

 ing his capture, he submitted it to Mr. Robert 

 Adkin, of Lewisham, with the rest of his this 

 season's captures. The latter gentleman showed it 

 to Mr. C. G. Barrett, who agreed it was that 

 species. When at sugar its captor thought it was 

 a very large specimen of Taniocampa stabilis, which 

 it rather resembles. M. acetosellcs occurs over the 

 whole of South Central Europe, including Russia, 

 but is locally distributed, rather than generally. It 

 is not probable that this is by any means the first 

 occurrence of this species in Britain, it being possibly 

 overlooked on account of its late appearance in the 

 season, and equally unlikely is it to be the last, 

 because Mr. Salvage's specimen had deposited all 

 its ova. It feeds in the larval stage upon oak, and 

 has been seen on beech and blackthorn, as well as 

 various low plants. At the end of May and during 

 June, it pupates in the ground. The genus Mesogona 

 follows Pachnobia in Staudinger's arrangement of 

 the lepidoptera of Europe. 



