^8 TlMEHlil. 
The foregoing cases may serve to explain the pecu- 
liarity of the very large number of instances in which 
persons have been said to have been bitten by the 
common forest pit-viper or labarria, and have recovered, 
and the extreme simplicity of the remedies used, such 
for instance as sugar and salt, parafin oil, onion poultice, 
external application of Ammonia, and other such sub- 
stances — some of which may certainly be efficacious in 
allaymg pain and lessening inflammation, but would 
have no real effe6l in dealing with a case of a lethal dose 
of snake-poison, especially after the more or less long 
intervals which usually elapse before such applications 
can be made. In certain cases, no doubt, the snakes 
may have been labarrias, whose glands may not have 
been fully charged, and whose bite would therefore not 
inje6l sufficient poison to kill ; but in the great majority 
of cases, it may be taken for granted the snakes were 
really not deadly, though perhaps capable of producing 
a certain amount of inflammation and more or less severe 
pain by means of the enlarged posterior maxillary teeth, 
whether grooved or not. 
To those who have an exa6l knowledge of snake 
stru6lure, the matter is simple enough ; but to the ordi- 
nary mind every dark snake is likely to be a labarria ; 
and whether the nature of the fangs be rightly deter- 
mined or not, the deadliness of the serpent would be 
regarded as evident even before inflammation and severe 
pain began. 
In the case of the other common pit-viper, the rattle- 
snake, there is no such doubtfulness of identification, 
the rattle aftording a certain means ; and it is noteworthy 
that while one seldom or never hears here of a case of 
