VENOMOUS SE'i SNAKES.' ,355 ' 



Head, which at length Irritated the Hydrus which was feen to bite at the 

 chickens foot — the bird was immediately withdrawn — the marks of 

 the fangs weie perceptable though not diftinftly fo : but in about ip 

 minutes from this period it appeared to droop, and to ha^•e a flight con* 

 vulfive flutter in both wings, in three minutes more it was decidedly 

 corivulfed, and at the end of 17 minutes from the period of being bit- 

 ten it fuddenly dropped down quite dead, 



RE M'A R K S; 

 From the refult of the experiment, and from a con fide ration of the 

 fymptoms detailed in the two cafes and corroborated in a greater or 

 lefs degree by thirteen others, there can (I apprehend) be no doubt en- 

 tertained as io the dangerous characier of the hydrus fpecies, and of the 

 powerful effedls of their poifon upon the human body. It may per- 

 haps be prefumed from the entire recover)'" of fifteen perfons bitten to 

 whom the proper remedies were adminiftered, that it might not have 

 proved fatal, and that the poifon was noc fo dangerous as that of many 

 of our Indian land fnakes : on this point I fliall not venture to decide 

 farrher than to remark, that the fymptoms detailed in Cafe 2d, followed 

 as nearly after the bite, and were as alarming in their appearance as in 

 the cafes of thofe bitten by the cobra de capello ; the moft dangerous 

 of our Indian fnakes : this being fo, there are no flrong reafons for 

 prefuming that the refults would not have been equally fatal, had the 

 proper remedies not been promptly applied. My confidence in the 

 volatile alkali as a powerful antidote when taken into the ftomach had 

 been long eftablifhed, and in the concentrated and elegant form of the 

 Eau-de-luce fully confirmed by the able detail of its effects, in his own 

 cafe given in vol. 11, of the Afiatic Tranfadions by my friend Do6tor 

 M'Rae of Chittagong, 



