FIELD AND FOREST. 1 3 



Landing." The shorie here is steep and rocky; and wooded up to 

 the top. While jumping down some rocks, the young man lost his 

 balance, catching himself on his hands, and immediately was bitten 

 on the right hand by a snake that was concealed in the dry leaves. 

 He at once attacked the snake, which he described as marked with 

 oval blotches, and some three feet long, stamping twice on it before 

 it escaped. 



The wound at once gave him some pain, like the sting of a wasp, 

 as he described it, and in a few minutes he began to vomit. This 

 continued until his stomach was emptied, when he still experienced 

 violent retching. He then became deadly faint, and lay down ; his 

 companions, who had not seen the snake, laughed at his statement, 

 saying it was a bee, and took no measures to prevent absorption of 

 the venom by sucking or bandaging ; four hours later he had been 

 brought to Georgetown, and was first seen by a physician, Drs. L. 

 Mackall and C. H. A. Kleinschmidt having been summoned. 



Dr. K. described his appearance at this time to me, as that of a 

 person in the last stages of collapse ; skin cold, pulse nearly gone, 

 respiration feeble, and pupils widely dilated, with great dimness of 

 vision. The right hand and arm was fearfully swollen, of a grayish- 

 black color, resembling gangrene. Stimulants were at once rejected 

 by the stomach, but a hypodermic injection of whiskey served to 

 arouse him. He was conveyed to his home, and the wound, (which 

 was on the ulnar border of the hand, midway between the palmar and 

 dorsal surfaces,) enlarged and covered with a hot poultice, cooling 

 applications applied to the arm, and everything done that could be 

 suggested by all previous experience in similar cases. He passed a 

 feverish night, but was much better Sunday. On Monday evening, I 

 called at the house, and found him nearly free from pain, though the 

 arm was still swollen to nearly the size of a man's thigh. From this 

 time he progressed rapidly toward recovery, and in less than a week 

 was out, with his arm in a sling. 



In visiting the same spot, the Saturday following the accident, a 

 young gentleman in my party found a Copperhead 34 inches long, re- 

 cently dead, and showing no external marks of injury, and from the 

 description given by the young man bitten^ it may be concluded be- 

 yond a doubt, that it was a snake of this species which bit him. 

 His recovery was due mainly to his good constitution, as the venom 



