The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1875-12-23
Curious Poison Stories.

A story is going round the daily press,
to the effect that q man once spit into q
rattlesnake's s mouth, aad the snake died :
he did the same thing to an adder. and
it died also. Another adder would not
open its mouth, so he spit on q stick,
rubbed the spittle on the adder's nose.
and it died. A non-poisonous black
snake was treated in the same way, but
it did not die ; and the conclusion is
drawn that human saliva is as poisonous
for poisonous snakes as the poison of
snakes is for man.
In order to realize the improbability
of this story, we will state that the
poison of snakes is not their saliva. but
special fluid secreted in bag situated
near the root of the poisonous fang,
which is provided with channel to con-
duct the poison from the bag to near the
point, so that it may be injected into the
wound
Many poisons, dangerous if given by
injection, are harmless in the stomach,
where, by the digestive powers of the
gastric and other juices, they are decom-
posed and made harmless. SO the vac
cine virus, which by incubation pro-
duces the well known ulcer, is perfectly
harmless when swallowed and several
other organic poisons, especially of the
septic kind, of animal origin, are only
dangerous when entering the system by
wound, and may with impunity be
taken into the mouth and stomach. An
excoriation or scratch on the lips or
tongue, by which they may enter the
circulation, is dangerous, as has been
proved by many examples. Hence the
danger of wounds during dissection by
medical students, by which the decom-
posed animal matter of the subject en-
ters the circulation, and kills the poor
victim rapidly while students with an
unimpaired skin on their hands NAV dis
sect any subject with impunity. A case
is on record of young lady who kissed
the dead body of her father. She had
little excoriation on her lip, which was
touched by the moisture on the lips of
the corpse; it soon infamed with all
the characteristics of virulent disgec-
ton wound, and in few days she was a
corpse also. The poison had entered
into the circulation of her blood.
Experiments i'll this line are of course
highly Objectionable but as far as ex.
perience has shown, most poisons of
this kind may with impunity be taken
in the stomach. If the saliva of man or
animals has any dangerous qualities, it
is mostly only manifest when entering
the circulation of the bitten individual,
and especially when the saliva has been
changed in its nature by the excitement
OF passions, such as great fear, anger,
etc. Hence arises the often malignant
appearance of bites by infuriated men or
animals while the Introduction of such
saliva into the stomach weuld undoubt-
edly, in most cases, not be attended
with serious consequences. This shows
the absurdity of the idea that the nor
NAL human saliva should be poison in
the mouth of any animal, ,whetherpossess-
ing poison bags connected with its
teeth or not.
The story reminds us of one which
went round the papers some years ago,
about a man who was bitten by a rattle
snake through his boot. Long after his
death, every one who tried on the boot
died of the consequence of a scratch in
the foot, produced by serpent's tooth
projecting inside the boot and the
cause of the mischief was only discover
ed when many persons had been killed.
The inventor of this story did not know
that the rattlesnake poison is only active
when freshly injected from the poison
bag.