"SamuelHopkinsAdams-ThePoisonBugaboo" - читать интересную книгу автора (Adams Samuel Hopkins)

in their effects. Were all these to be recorded, I believe that the mortality
ratio would fall notably.
Although I have been interested in the subject for many years, I have never met
a man
-519- who has seen a fatal case of snake bite. More than this, my friend Mr.
Stewart Edward White, a noted hunter and explorer of untrodden ground in regions
infested by reptiles, has known of but one case terminating in death which he
believes to be authentic. Dr. J. A. Mitchell, of Victoria, Texas, one of the
most experienced of field observers, has never met with an instance of fatality
from this cause. Dr. Mitchell believes that horses always, and dogs almost
always, recover from rattlesnake bite. He confirms, from observation, the
mysterious fact that hogs exhibit absolute immunity from the venom.
WHISKY VS. SNAKEBITE
Be it remembered always that death following snake bite is not necessarily the
same thing as death from snake bite. Error in treatment plays no small part in
vitiating the statistics. For "error" read "whisky." Whoever is primarily
responsible for the hoary superstition that liquor in huge doses is useful in
snake poisoning has many a life to answer for. Apart from any adventitious aid
whatsoever, whether from a snake or any other source, a whole bottle of raw
whisky forced down the throat of a man unaccustomed to alcohol is pretty likely
to kill him, and is absolutely certain to cause grave poisoning. Add to this
that it is given, often, in such a manner that the reaction from it comes
contemporaneously with the heart collapse caused by the venom, and a telling
commentary upon the method is suggested. It is a question whether alcohol should
ever be given in such cases without the advice of a physician. Certain it is
that it should not be poured into the victim in quantities limited only by the
flask-contents of the bystanders.
Several years ago I saw two interestingly contrasted cases of copperhead bite.
The first patient was a powerful, full-blooded, temperate, Irish day-laborer
who, while road-mending, was bitten on the back of the hand between two fingers.
His fellows hustled him off to a room over a neighboring saloon, where they
proceeded to administer the classic treatment. Before the doctor arrived they
had introduced a quart and a half of whisky into a stomach unused to anything
stronger than beer in small quantities. Six hours later, when I saw the man
through the wreckage of chairs, tables, and bedding, four battered friends were
trying to hold him down. They thought he was having convulsions from the snake
venom. He wasn't. He was having delirium tremens from the whisky. His arm and
shoulder were purple and swollen. Later he collapsed
"Will he die?" I asked the doctor.
"He won't die of the bite, but I think he will of the whisky," replied the
disgusted practitioner.
But he didn't. His splendid physique pulled him through. It was long, however,
before he wholly recovered from the effects of the two poisons.
This was in a Hudson River town. Only a few miles away a negro boy, shortly
after, was struck by a copperhead on the bare leg. The wound was a deep,
double-fanged puncture. While the boy's father rushed for whisky, his mother ran
for the doctor. The doctor got there first. He opened up the wound and rubbed in
permanganate of potash to oxidize the venom and destroy its toxic properties.
When I talked with the boy, two days later, he was hobbling about on a crutch,
and the swelling had almost subsided. Setting the boy's lesser age and resistant