490 SUPPLEMENT 



In his experiments, Maupeituis caused many dogs and 

 pullets to be stung by the scorpions of Languedoc ; but of all 

 these animals only a single dog died, which had received on 

 that part of the belly without hair three or four wounds from 

 the sting of a scorpion which had been previously much 

 irritated. All the other dogs, and even the pullets, in spite of 

 the fury and repeated blows of scorpions recently taken in the 

 country, suffered nothing. 



The author of this last experiment tells us, that in an hour 

 after the dog which fell a victim was stung, it became very 

 much swelled and staggering. It ejected all that it had in 

 its stomach and intestines, and continued for three hours to 

 vomit up from time to time a sort of viscous slaver. Its belly, 

 which was very tense, diminished after each vomiting, and 

 then swelled anew. These alternations of swellings and 

 vomitings lasted about three hours, at the end of which the 

 dog had convulsions, bit the ground, dragged himself along on 

 his fore-paws, and died at last six hours after he was stung. 



Dr. Maccary had the courage to try upon himself, and with 

 the same species of scorpion, some experiments, which prove 

 that its poison may produce very serious accidents, and that 

 it is more active in proportion as the animal is older. He told 

 M. Latreille that several of the French soldiers died in Spain 

 from the sting of this scorpion. Accidental circumstances, 

 as a morbid habit of body, for example, may augment the 

 danger. 



D'Opsonville, in his Essais PJiilosoph. sur les Mceurs des 

 divers Animaux Etrangers, says, " the bite of marsh or field- 

 snakes, such as those we see in Europe, is commonly as little 

 dangerous in Asia. A slight scarification, and the applica- 

 tion of a little quick lime, or of a piece of copper rusted with 

 verdigris, which is fixed on the wound, will suffice to effect a 

 cure. These two receipts are also employed against the sting 



