THE POISONOUS SNAKES OP INDIA. 105 



Before quitting the subject of local signs I wish to make a few 

 remarks on the characters of wounds resulting from snake-bite due 

 to mechanical causes alone. There is a popular belief that the 

 pattern left by a snake's teeth in the act of biting can furnish a 

 clue to the poisonous or non-poisonous character of the oflFender. 

 Fayrer has done much to foster this belief by his illustrations of 

 the dentition marks of certain snakes, and in the remarks on this 

 subject in I. A. F. M. 1248 given to Military Hospitals with 

 directions for the treatment, etc., for snake-bite, these views are 

 reiterated. Without denying that it may sometimes be possible 

 to guess at the nature of the snake, I am very decidedly of opinion 

 that, in the generality of cases of snake-bite, it is quite impossible 

 for even an expert to say from the pattern of the punctures whether 

 the snake that occasioned them was a harmless or poisonous variety. 

 I might even go further, and say it is impossible to say with any 

 proximation to certainty whether the wounds were inflicted by a 

 snake at all. Vincent Richards says apropos this subject : "Not the 

 slightest reliance is to be placed in the appearance of the scratches 

 or punctures, though very much stress has been laid upon them as 

 a means of diagnosing the bite of a venomous snake." A. J. Wall 

 similarly remarks : " Now the mark of the teeth is no guide, or 

 next to none,, because a Cobra may not leave a single mark 

 visible to the naked eye : and on the other hand fanged harmless 

 snakes, like Lycodon and Dipsas may leave punctures in the skin 

 that might easily be mistaken for the wounds caused by the fangs 

 of venomous snakes." I have several times been bitten by harm- 

 less snakes, including those referred to by A. J. Wall, that have long 

 fang like teeth situated like those of poisonous snakes, and in all 

 cases the wounds have been lacerated, not punctured. Generally 

 speaking a snake cannot make its jaws meet tooth to tooth on the 

 flesh, its mouth being too small to grasp the limb or other part, but 

 it fastens itself obliquely, and the teeth slip ofi" and tear the skin. 



Illustrative Gases. 

 No. 1. 

 Daboia-bite. Toxaemia. Death after about 23| hours. 

 ■Reported by Dr. Spaar (Spolia Zeylanica, May 1910). 



