COMMON VIPER. 



369 



Atld now with fiercer heat the desert glows, 

 And mid-day gleamings aggravate their woes : 

 When lo ! a spring amid the sandy plain 

 Shews its clear mouth to cheer the fainting train. 

 But round the guarded brink in thick array 

 Dire aspics roil'd their congregated way ; 

 And thirsting in the midst the torrid Dipsas lay. 

 Blank horror seizM their veins ; and at the view 

 Back from the fount the troops recoiling flew : 

 When, wise above the crowd, by cares unquell'd, 

 Their awful leader thus their dread dispell'd : 

 Let not vain terrors thus your minds enslave ; 

 Nor dream the serpent brood can taint the wave : 

 Urg'd by the fatal fang tlieir poison kills; 

 But mixes harmless with the bubblmg rills. 

 Dauntless he spoke, and bending as he stood, 

 Drank with cool courage the suspected flood. 



The symptoms, "says Dr. Mead, 'Svhich follow 

 the bite of a Viper, when it fastens either one or 

 both its greater teeth in any part of the body, are . 

 an acute pain in the place M^ounded, with a swell- 

 ing, at first red, but afterwards livid, which by 

 degrees spreads farther to the neighbouring parts ; 

 with great faintness, and a quick, though low, 

 and sometimes interrupted, pulse ; great sickness 

 at the stomach, with bilious, convulsive vomit- 

 ings, cold sweats, and sometimes pain about the • 

 navel ; and if the cure be not speedy, death itself, 

 unless the strength of nature prove sufficient to 

 overcome these disorders : and though it does, the 

 swelling still continues inflamed for some time ; 

 nay, in some cases, more considerably upon the 

 abating of the other symptoms than at the begin- 

 ning; and often from the small wound runs a 



