50 
THE THANATOPHIDIA OF INDIA. 
snake entered the house for protection from wet, and nestled 
near the hoy for warmth, and that on being disturbed by the 
sleeper moving in his sleep, he began to hiss. The boy, at¬ 
tempting to brush him off as he would a mosquito, was bitten 
on the right wrist. 
“ Gya Ram, a Jalliah by caste and fisherman by trade, of the 
village Bowroh, near Khurdah, was reported to have been bitten 
by a snake at 9 p.m. on Aug. 2nd, 1870. Age twenty, a won¬ 
derfully fine man, largely developed, very tall and well formed, 
in perfect health, certainly an uncommonly muscular, strong 
man for a Bengali. Deceased had just married ; he was sleep¬ 
ing on the ground in his hut, his wife and sister were sleeping 
outside the door. The informant is a caste friend of deceased, 
and lives over the way opposite the deceased s hut; he (that is, 
Kinoo, the friend) was asleep in his hut when Gya Ram 
called out ‘ Kinoo, look here, a snake has bitten me and run 
away.’ Kinoo and some other neighbours went to deceased’s 
hut, and found him sitting on the ground holding up his 
drooping hand, from which a few drops of blood were falling. 
Patient complained of a burning pain in hand. Samboo, a 
Jalliah, first tried breathing on patient and prayers. Then a 
Brahmin, and finally a Bagdie by caste did the same. No 
medicine was given internally. In about an hour the patient 
began to foam at the mouth, and became speechless. He was 
not purged; his bowels were never moved from time of bite to 
time of death. He passed no urine either. He kept very quiet, 
in a state of half unconsciousness. He never spoke after the 
first hour after the bite, but he groaned a little at times. He 
died at 10 p.m. There is some discrepancy in the length of 
time he lived after the bite; most witnesses say that he lived 
no more than an hour, but from the details gathered it seems 
that he lived at least one hour and a half. Nobody saw the 
snake. The village is half a koss from Khurdah, where Hurrie 
Doss was killed by a snake on July 27tli. There are no snake 
catchers in the village or neighbourhood. The whole population 
does poojah to snakes. Nobody would kill a snake ; they believe 
snakes to be the sons of a tree,* called in Bengali ‘ Munsa 
Mahai (goddess of serpents)they worship both the Munsa and 
her son the snake. The body was not brought to Barrackpoor 
till the afternoon of Aug. 3rd. Post-mortem examination at 
5.30 p.m. Aug. 3rd, 1870, nineteen and a half hours after death. 
Thermometer 88°, very damp heat; calm. Body in excellent 
state of nutrition, and well preserved. Rigor mortis well 
marked in legs; not so well marked, hut yet well marked in 
left arm, especially in the fingers. No rigor mortis at all in 
the right arm—-the bitten limb. The bite is on the ring finger 
of the right hand. The punctures are very minute, with a 
little dry blood on them; there are two punctures, one larger 
than the other, and a few scratches further down the finger. 
The hand is puffy; the dorsum of the hand is raised up into a 
soft doughy puffiness. The wrist is much swollen. The arm 
is swollen and hardened up to the elbow. The whole forearm is 
about one quarter larger than on the other side. The excessive 
limpness of the right arm, compared to the cadaverous stiffness 
of the remainder of the body, is very striking. A cut made 
across the punctures shows a small half formed soft clot, rather 
dark; it is bathed in reddish serum; the whole hand appears 
to be infiltrated with a darkish sanious fluid; there is no formed 
coagulum anywhere under the skin. Nails very blue. A good 
deal of tympanites; some dark sanious fluid dropping from 
mouth ; a little catarrhal mucosity oozing from nose. Chest.— 
No adhesion. Upper lobe of right lung slightly congested; 
lower lobe deeply congested, looking like the port-wine coloured 
infiltration of lung apoplexy. Left lung intensely congested in 
its upper half; the lower half normal. The whole lungs are 
wonderfully congested, and remind one of apoplexy of the 
lungs. Heart. —Both auricles empty. The aorta full of dark 
fluid blood; no fibrinous clots seen anywhere. Right ventricle 
empty; left ventricle empty ; both ventricles look almost as if 
they had been washed. Abdomen. —Every organ appeared sound 
in abdomen. The intestines were distended by gases. Head.— 
No fluid under membranes of brain. The ventricles quite dry, 
no fluid at base of brain. The brain substance is very soft, and 
tears very easily. There are no abnormal points of vascularity ; 
everything looks quite normal except the excessive softness of 
the tissue of the cerebrum and cerebellum. This may he due 
to the length of time between death and examination of body. 
“ Remarks. —There was a good deal of rain on the morning of 
Aug. 2nd; but the sky was clear on the night of Aug. 2nd. 
It seems, however, that the snake came close to the deceased, 
who, in attempting to brush him off while in a half sleepy state, 
was bitten on the right hand. From the similarity of appear¬ 
ances in this and Hurrie Doss’s case, it seems that there is some 
probability that the snake was a Cobra. 
“ Note. —In these three cases, the Bengali test of death by 
snake-bite was tried. It consists in ascertaining whether the 
hair of the head comes off easily on being gently pulled. It 
answered in the first case, that of Achloo, the least otherwise 
marked case, but it did not prove true in the other two cases.” 
“ Puddoomonee Dassee, wife of Muttondass, carpenter, aged 
thirty, living at Agarpara, a small village on the hanks of the 
Hooghly, three miles from Khurdah, seven miles from Barrack- 
poor. Her husband was away on some work up country. She 
was asleep with a child in a cot near the window of the hut,— 
at least, two neighbours who live in the next hut state that 
such was her place when they last saw her on the evening of 
Aug. 3rd. At about 5 a.m., Aug. 4th, her neighbours heard her 
shouting and went into the house. Nobody saw the snake; the 
woman said she had been bitten by a snake, and complained of 
burning pain in the right foot. She appeared faint and foamed 
a little at the mouth. In less than half an hour she was speech¬ 
less, hut breathed slowly with much gurgling in the throat. She 
was quite insensible, and died within two or three hours after 
she first called out to her neighbours. No treatment. It 
appears probable that the woman got up, and put her foot on 
a snake which had taken refuge inside the hut, owing to the 
swampy state of the country around. Post-mortem examina¬ 
tion at 1.30 p.m. Aug. 5th, 1870, about twenty-seven and a 
half hours after death: thermometer 85°, stormy. Body 
well nourished; in good state of preservation (it had been 
rubbed all over with McDougall’s powder and water over 
night, and all orifices closed with pieces of rag soaked in the 
same lotion); face puffy. No rigor mortis. Punctures of 
fangs on dorsum of great toe, right foot. Foot and leg much 
swollen and puffy, leg about one-third larger than the other; 
no clot under the puncture, only a little pale reddish serum. 
Chest. —Much gas in chest. Lungs intensely congested and the 
colour of damson; on section the lung tissue appears precisely 
as in cases of lung apoplexy. Both lungs equally infiltrated 
with the dark fluid blood. Heart of natural size and quite 
healthy; all four cavities are perfectly empty, and the inside of 
the ventricles looks as if it had been washed under a stream of 
water. Aorta, when cut across, was found partially full of 
dark liquid blood which ran out; no fibrinous clots; no dark 
clots. Abdomen. —Tympanites. Stomach half-filled with digested 
rice and vegetables; quite normal. Small and large intestines 
much distended by gases, but apparently quite healthy. The 
peritoneal covering of the liver peels very easily, but not quite 
so much so as in previous cases. Liver tissue slightly congested. 
Spleen of a dark port-wine colour, on section oozing a great deal 
of dark sanious fluid; kidneys normal. Head. —Pia mater very 
congested, or rather its vessels distended with dark blood, as in 
* The Euphorbia ligularia. It resembles in appearance a cactus. 
