556 
H. C. YARROW. 
round the place where the bite was, which was easily seen by swell¬ 
ing, and rubbed in a powder which he said was made from the 
dried poison sacs of another snake. In a few hours the poison 
had entirely subsided and the cattle were as well as their half 
starved state would allow them to be. I expressed some doubt 
whether this cure would be efficacious in the case of the more 
deadly kind of snake, but the bushman assured me that it would, 
and that he was not afraid of being bitten by any snake in this 
country so long as he had the poison sac of another snake to use 
as an antidote. 
“ The very next day I had an opportunity of putting him to 
the test. While walking ahead of the wagon I saw a full grown 
capell or spunghe slange lying under a bank, and calling the 
bushman said, ‘ Catch that snake alive. You are afraid of it, are 
you V ‘No, boss,’ he replied, ‘ I am not afraid, and will catch it 
for a roll of tobacco.’ Not wishing to be accessory to his death, 
I refused to bribe him, and went to get the driving whip to kill 
the snake with. I had scarcely returned when he gave it a kick 
with his naked foot, and the horrible reptile bit him. Coolly ta¬ 
king out some dried poison sacs he reduced them to powder, 
pricked his feet near the puncture with his knife, and rubbed the 
virus powder in just as he had done with the cattle. In the mean¬ 
time I had put a stop to the snake biting any more by a blow 
from the whip stock, and the bushman extracted the fangs, drank 
a drop of poison from the virus sack, and soon fell into a stupor 
which lasted some hours. At first the swelling increased rapidly, 
but after a time it began to subside, and next morning he inocu¬ 
lated himself again. That night the swelling disappeared, and in 
four days he was as well as ever.” 
In conclusion it may be mentioned that this record of experi¬ 
mental inquiry is not intended as an exhaustive treatise, for as 
opportunity occurs other experiments will be tried with such sup¬ 
posed remedies for snake bite as may be offered, and the results 
will be duly published. In conducting the experiments the writer 
has been influenced by the motives only of adding to the sum of 
human knowledge and alleviating human misery, and if he has 
succeeded in this he will be amply repaid for the labor and dan- 
