194 The Golondrina Plant. 



their reticence hides from most white men. From him we learned 

 this remedy, and announce it with the assurance of Mr. Smith's 

 entire responsibility and veracit}^. Indeed, so confident is he of the 

 power of the remedy that he is willing, in true California eloquence, 

 to wager Dr. Mitchell in any sum from $500 to $1000 that he can 

 cure any case of rattlesnake bite, Dr. Mitchell himself furnishing the 

 snake if he wants to be sure of its venomous character. The remedy 

 is this: There is a weed which grows wherever the rattlesnake 

 lives ; it is green during snake season. When a creature is bitten the 

 green weed is bruised in a little urine, the skin about the bite is 

 scarified with a knife, and the bruised weed is rubbed over the scari- 

 fied place for ten or fifteen minutes. A bunch of the bruised weed is 

 then bound on the scarified surface and left. Within forty-eight 

 hours without fail all symptoms of the poison disappear. 



4 The weed is a species of Euphorbia common in this country. 

 It is a little, vinelike plant, radiating from a center, usually clinging 

 close to the ground, with a light green round leaf shaped like a 

 clover leaf, but only a half or a third as large. When a stem is 

 broken, milk will drop out profusely. A few pieces of the weed 

 grow just south of where the road leads from San Gorgonio avenue, 

 in Banning, across the vineyard to the company's barn north of 

 town. There just at the edge of the road along the ditch it can be 

 found and recognized. 



' Mr. Smith gave us three accounts of this cure : 



'1. In 1878 a snake charmer in Prescott, Arizona, was bitten 

 by a rattlesnake on the back of the hand. Ten hours thereafter he 

 was unconscious, his arm and whole side swollen, and the physi- 

 cians gave him up to die. Mr. Smith then applied his remedy, and 

 the next morning the man was walking the streets well. 



'2. In 1862 a Mexican boy was herding sheep in this pass for 

 the Trujillos. He was bitten by a rattlesnake on the fiorefinger. 

 When seen by Mr. Smith the next day he was swollen enormously 

 all over, ' as big as three boys,' says Mr. Smith, and in great agony. 

 This remedy cured him. 



'3. A horse was bitten on the nose. W^hen found its head was 

 swollen, and knots as big as nuts showed down its neck and on its 

 body. It had been bitten several hours, the fang marks showing on 

 its nose. He cured it and rode it fifty miles the third day without 

 injur}-. 



' The Mexicans call this weed golondrino. 



'If any one seeing this article knows Dr. S. Wier Mitchell's ad- 

 dress, we would be obliged by having him see this article.' 



In the first paragraph of the above article reference is made to 



