SNAKES OF CEYLON. 485 



of the hooded snake, and I have heard of two or three only to 

 whom it has proved fatal." Russell mentions a cooly woman 

 whom he saw 10 hours after being bitten by a cobra. Para- 

 lysis had advanced so far as to seriously affect her throat, and 

 he had difficulty in getting her to swallow a Tanjore pill. She 

 recovered completely. He mentions another case of a drunken 

 Irishman who declared he was proof against any snake owing 

 to his nationality, and put a cobra into his shirt before an 

 assembled throng. The snake bit him severely in the breast, 

 he suffered not only great pain locally, but serious constitu- 

 tional effects, nevertheless he recovered. Dr. Nicholson 

 records a case where two snakemen, under the influence of 

 drink, got bitten by one of their cobras. As some time had 

 elapsed when he saw them, he coloured some water pink with 

 his dentifrice, which he gave them to allay their fears. Both 

 recovered, though one had a swollen hand next day as a result 

 of the accident. Calmette records another very interesting 

 case where a man was profoundly under the influence of cobra 

 poisoning following a bite, but who persistently refused 

 antivenene which was to hand, took his chance, and recovered 

 completely. 



These cases are most instructive, and serve to point two 

 lessons. One is that however serious the symptoms arising 

 from a cobra bite, there is always hope. The other lesson is 

 that nobody is qualified to assume that any given treatment, 

 adopted in a certain case, has been responsible for its favour- 

 able issue. There can be no doubt that the failure to realize 

 this latter truth has been responsible for the host of reputed 

 antidotes, which have been vaunted from time to time since 

 the days of Celsus, all of which have proved futile when 

 subjected to scientific experiment. It is difficult to say what 

 percentage of cases of cobra bite would not prove mortal. 

 Dr. Davy, speaking of Ceylon cobras, says that recovery 

 follows the bite as often as death. In the article on Snake 

 Poisons in Allbutt's system of medicine, Lamb and Martin 

 say : " the mortality in persons bitten by the larger snakes of 

 India and South America would not, from the scanty records 

 available, appear to be more than 30 per cent." 



