OF THE OLANDS. 
51 
and laborious ; the patient experiences a burning thirst ; 
nausea and vomiting quickly succeed, often followed by 
great distress and faintings, which, joined to the most 
violent pain, deprives the sufferer of his intellectual facul- 
ties. Livid spots surrounding the wound are the precur- 
sors of gangrene, which spreads to other parts of the body, 
and causes death after a longer or shorter interval. It is 
fortunate that the bite of serpents, even in tropical coun- 
tries, is not always mortal ; yet the individuals who have 
been bitten perceive after their recovery, even through 
their lives, periodic sufferings, or are affected with 
partial or complete palsy of the affected parts, or even 
experience a continual disturbance of their intellectual 
faculties. 
We shall recollect to enumerate, when treating of the 
errors in which the history of serpents is enveloped, some of 
the pretended antidotes against the bites of snakes : a num- 
ber of other remedies have been tried, of which the efficacy 
has been vaunted by some, denied by others, and finally 
shewn to be useless by subsequent experiments. Every 
country produces persons who pretend to possess the art 
of curing the bites of serpents ; but we should distrust su- 
perstitious persons, most frequently impostors, whose whole 
knowledge is founded on empiricism. Every tribe of the nume- 
rous races of men of both Americas have a different mode of 
treating maladies of this nature ; but the plants of which 
the one tribe vaunts the virtues, are unknown or rejected 
by the rest. In the villages of central Europe it is chiefly 
herdsmen and shepherds who, professing the healing art, 
consider it nothing above their skill to cure the bites of 
vipers. In India and in Egypt this art is the special occu- 
pation of one caste, at this day as ignorant as were their 
ancestors in classic times. Instead of transcribing here 
what has been written on this subject, I shall confine my- 
self to point out the remedies which have been most suc- 
cessfully employed and generally recognised. 
The first precaution to use^ when one has been bitten by 
a venomous serpent, is to clean the bitten part, in order 
to prevent the poison adhering to the skin from entering 
the scarifications, which it is judicious to make immediately : 
