The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1891-07-03
TEMPERANCE NOTES.
ALCOHOL FOR SNAKE BITES.

ALCOHOL FOR SNAKE BITES.
| Extract from a Lecture by j. ii. Kellogg,
| NJ. d., of the Battle Creek Sanitarum.
People who are ready to admit that
the effects of alcohol upon the human
stomach are bed under ordinary condi-
tions and rarely necessary for medical
purposes still think that nothing but
whisky will cure person bitten by
rattlesnake. However, | am inclined
to think that there is more of supersti-
ton than fact in regard to the supposed
benefit to be derived from the use of
alcohol to counterfeit the poison of the
rattlesnake. At any rate l am quite
sure that a whisky bite is a great deal
worse than a snake bite. But YOU say
man was bitten by rattlesnake and
he drank large quantities of liquor and
it did not make him drunk-a man who
was not addicted to the use of liquor
and a fraction of the quantity would
have made him dead drunk under o1di-
nary circumstances-doesn that prove
whisky to be an antidote? Or here is
another man bitten by a rattlesnake
who took alcohol and did not die Such
instances prove nothing. In the first
place, the reason that man who has
been thus bitten does not become drunk
by taking liquor is simply because the
| poison of the snake is more virulent
than the poison of the whisky. 1t is
| just the same with poisons which are
given as medicines. Under certain con-
Gitions, morphine can be administered
in doses which would prove fatal to one
in health. Nature mas her attention so
thoroughly directed to the disease that
she pays no attention to the medicine
On the other hand some become ex-
ceedingly susceptible to the medicine.
If person is really poisoned by the
virus of rattlesnake, the whole sys-
TEN is aroused in alarm and conse-
quently alcohol can be taken in enor-
nous quantities and the body does not
give it recognition. 1t might also be
the case that the person was under
such a state of mental excitement that
the alcohol would have no effect Many
man in the army was wounded quite
| severely and yet SO carried away by the
excitement of the battle that he did not
know until afterward that there was
anything the matter with him.
But you ask further, how about the
cases of individuals who took whisky
for the bite and got we'll? Many be-
lieve that if a person bitten by rattle
| snake can be made dead drunk he will
recover But the truth is that if you
can make him dead drunk, it merely
shows that he was not effectively bit
| ten. The apparatus with which rat
tlesnake deals out his virus is of bone
and made exactly like a hypodermic
syringe, being sharpcned off with
chisel point. 1t is curved so that if it
strikes the skin indirectly. it strikes on
the rounded side and does no harm for
the poison slides off. Frequently
snake will make two or three fruitless
thrusts and will empty his poison bag
before he pierces the skin at all The
thrust has to be exactly right else the
instrument will glance off and will not
penetrate the skin, or by getting too
much excited the snake spills out his
poison too soon and little or none gets
| into the system. Or, again, if the bite
is made through clothing, very little of
the virus will penetrate. Probably not
more than one case in ten receives
fatal bite and the remaining nine
cases are the ones which get well when
treated with whisky for they would get
well anyway.
The proper thing to do is to imme-
diately extract the blood and the
poison from the wound by sucking
1t with the mouth. The wound can
first be squeezed and cleansed
and then drawn with the lips with per-
feet safety. If the part is inacces-
sibte, get another person to perform
the service for you. There are other
other remedies snch as soaring with
red hot iron, the application of caustic
or of carbolic acid, but in the majority
of eases these things are not at hand
and to wait to secure them would be at
the risk of fe.-Reported by Helen L.
Manninr