£g^ EFFECTS OF THE BITE OF A ftATTLESNAKE. 



crease with 2:rea(er or less rapidity for about twelve hours, 

 extending during that period into the neighbourhood of the 

 bite ; the blood ceases to flow in the smaller vessels of the 

 swoln parts; the skin over them becomes quite cold, the 

 action of the heart is so weak, that the pulse is scarcely- 

 perceptible, and the stomach is so irritable, that nothing is 

 retained in it. In about 60 hours these symptoms go off, 

 inflammation and suppuration take place in the injured, 

 parts, and when the abscess formed is very great, it proves 

 fatal. When the bite has been in the finger, that part has 

 immediately mortified. When death has taken place under 

 such circumstances, the absorbent vessels and their glands 

 have undergone no change similar to the effect of morbid 

 poisons, nor has any part lost its natural appearance, except 

 those immediately connected with the abscess. 



In those patients, who recover with difficulty from the 

 bite, tj)e symptoms produced by it go off more readily, and 

 more completely, than those produced by a morbid poison, 

 which has been received into the system. 



The violent effects which the poison produces on the part 

 bitten, and on the general system, and the shortness of 

 their duration, where they do not terminate fatally, has 

 frequently induced the belief, that the recovery depended 

 on the medicines employed ; and in the East Indies eau de 

 luce is considered as a specific for the cure of the bite of the 

 cobra di capello. 



There does not appear to be any foundation for such an 

 opinion ; for when the poison is so intense, as to give a suf- 

 ficient shock to the constitution, death immediately takes 

 place ; and where the poison produces a local injury of suf- 

 ficient extent, the patient also dies, while all slighter cases 

 recover. 



The effect of the poison on the constitution is so imme- 

 diate, and the irritability of the stomach is so great, that 

 there is no opportunity of exhibiting medicines, till it has 

 fairly taken place, and then there is little chance of bene- 

 ficial effects being produced. 

 Treatment, T''^ only rational local treatment to prevent the secondary 



mischief is making ligatures above the tumefied part, to 

 compress the cellular membrane, and set bounds to the 



swtllins. 



patients who 

 recover. 



Supposed 

 efficacy of 

 medicines. 



