188 
SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. 
It is gratifying to learn that Dr. Burr is now engaged upon a 
monograph of the earwigs of the world. The excellence of the 
present work is a pleasing foretaste of what may be expected from 
the forthcoming magnum opus. 
E. E. GREEN. 
11. The Bite of RusselVs Viper .—At midnight on April 6, 1910,1 
was hastily summoned to see the late Mr. MacIntyre, Postmaster of 
Trincomalee, who had been bitten by a polonga. On arrival at his 
residence, thirty to forty minutes after the accident, I found him 
seated erect on a chair on his verandah. He was bathed in a cold, 
clammy sweat, and complained of feeling sick, and was vomiting 
continually. The ejected matter consisted of a few grains of boiled 
rice and water and bile-stained fluid, and later on of glairy mucus. 
He had been attended to, within five or ten minutes of the accident, 
by a constable, who applied to the wound a black “snake stone ” 
such as I have seen in the possession of “ snake charmers.” Inter¬ 
nally a remedy, prepared by dissolving part of a light green stone 
in water, had been administered with the object of producing 
vomiting. 
The Postmaster stated that about ten minutes after he retired to 
bed he heard a noise as of heavy breathing, and imagining that it 
was his little boy who was asleep, he walked over to the latter’s cot, 
about four feet away. Making him comfortable, he was returning to 
his own bed, when he felt a sharp sting over his heel, and jumped 
into bed. Simultaneously, hissing sounds were heard, and it imme¬ 
diately struck him that he must have been bitten by a snake. A 
light was brought into the room, which had been in darkness, and a 
search made, and a polonga was found coiled up in a corner. Three 
hemp ligatures were applied by his wife round the injured limb : 
one just above the ankle, another round the knee, and the other 
round the lower part of the thigh. The wound is said to have 
bled freely, staining all the bed linen. Careful examination, after 
cleansing of the limb, revealed a single, black, pin-point puncture on 
the inner side of the right heel, about an inch above the sole. There 
was then no bleeding, and but ^ery slight pain complained of. The 
tissues around had a faint bluish tint, and the limb was swollen from 
the knee downwards. The ligatures, I found, were not too tightly 
applied. The patient complained of great weakness, and there was 
much restlessness, violent retching, and inability to sleep. 
I incised the wound freely, and injected into it a saturated 
solution of permanganate of potash. A series of punctures were 
also made all round, and the same solution injected hypodermically 
into the tissues. Powdered crystals were then rubbed in, and 
the wound packed with the same. The limb was postured,»and 
compresses also of the solution applied and frequently renewed. 
