The age-herald., 1901-02-24
A NEvlLLo's BITE.
Lizard From Whose Bite There Is No
 Recovery.

Recovery.
 From the New York Sun.
 q guess l am the only living man that has been bitten by the neville, a venomous lizard of the Isthmus of Tehauntepec," said William W. Gloom, New Yorker with Central American experiences. "This lizard is of the gila monster family, and is horrid looking reptile of a mottled liver color and from six to ten inches long. Its bite is deadly, and, as I said, 1 am the only person known who has lived after being bitten. It was case of nip and tuck, though, and 1 didn't get over it for two months or more.
 "The brute bit me out of pure mal- ice, for l wasn't doing a thing to it. had a coffee plantation down on the isthmus, several years ago, and just before the hot season began, which was in March, I had as my guest Dr. Fergus Macdonald of the Smithsonian Institution, who was in that country in the interest of science. While he was with me we received an invitation to visiL the great plantation of Dr. Pedro tArguilles, one of the most prom inent men of that country, and we went to his hacienda near Minititlan. The ladies of the family had all gone to Mexico City and as the weather was hot we men loafed around in our pajamas, the upper garment of which is big sleeved affair called camisa.
 "One day Dr. Macdonald and 1 had adjourned to the patio or court of the building, and while 1 lay in the grass talking to him he was busy greasing and putting into shape his guns and revolvers. He was six or eight feet away from me ana I was lying with my head propped up on my arm from which the sleeve had slipped, leaving it exposed to the elbow, which rested on the grass. Of course, neither of us was thinking about reptiles or other dangers right there in the court of the building. Suddenly as 1 talked the doctor threw his hand up in warn ing and I knew that whatever 1t was he saw there was danger in my nov ing and I must keep still. So l kept as steady as I could, and then I felt something get up my arm toward my head and stop near my wrist.
 "I couldn't see what 1t was, but I knew something about tropical rep tiles, and 1 kept perfectly quiet, while the doctor caught up one of his re- volvers and threw a couple of cart ridges into it. He aimed across my body and fired, and as I jumped to my feet a neville at least inches long fell writhing to the ground shot through the head. The bullet had gone on into my arm and come out at the elbow and I was bleeding. Be- tween the bullet marks, though, were the fang marks where the neville had stuck it's teeth into my arm, and told the doctor I thought it had got me. AS soon as he saw it he gave me some kind of hypodermic injection in the left leg, the right arm having been bitten, and at once took his knife and slashed me across the fang marks. Into the wounds of my arm he poured bottle of concentrated ammonia Almost instantly after I had been bitten I began to grow dizzy and to see what seemed to me to be clouds of light smoke, and when the ammonia struck me I keeled over in a dead faint
 Five days later I awoke in a mud bath by the river side, my body twice it's normal size, and my tongue stick ing out of my mouth. They had car ried me there as soon as I tainted, and night and day my guide and his sidehrdlu eerahihrdlu mfwy Inf mfw daughter had been watching by me, with fires at night to keep off the ami mals from the jungle. Every twelve hours my arm was lifted from the mud and cleansed, and on these oc- casions it was always found to be of a green color. AS soon as I returned to consciousness 1 was carried to the house and put to bed, and there for two weeks l remained, and then went down to the coast and up to the we'll known hot springs, where was treat the venom had left my body. During it all I suffered no pain, nor have ever felt the slightest inconvenience since. What effect the bullet wound in the arm had I don't know. Possibly the blood that came from the bullet wounds saved me. Anyhow, some thing happened that never happened to any other person bitten by a nev- illo, or I wouldn't be here to tell the story"
 MT. Gloom barred his arm for the benefit of the listeners, and if an arm ever looked as if had been through a hard campaign that one did. It was scared as if burnt with hot irons and covered from the elbow down with all kinds of peculiarly shaped mottled spots of about the same color as the lizard.