The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1904-08-20
THE RATrLEsxAKE's B1rE.

Now and then science con-
firms some of the old-wife medical
superstitions of the backwoods. For
instance, the "yarb" doctors and old
womn of rattlesnake regions say
that when a man gets over rattle
snake bite he has trouble in the
wound every year afterward.
Patho1ogists and PSYCHOLOGISTS
who have studied snake poison agree
that this is true, only the trouble
doesn't necessarily occur every year.
1t happens whenever the system gets
out of order.
The explanation is simple. Snake
poison has the effect of destroying
tissue. Of course it has the strong
est effect in and about the wound
where the poison, in its course
through the veins, has not yet been
diluted by the blood.
Ever afterward that is q weak
point in the system. Any little dis
turbance in the blood tends to break
out at the point of the wound.
When this happens the old wives
say that it is the poison working. It
is not, of course. 1t is only the ex-
cess poison of the body working in
the weak spot.
There was a case of this kind with
rather unusual history in a Colo
RADIO hospital few years ago. The
patient was a scout who had helped
the army make way for civilization
in the Rockies.
The Utes, Arapahoes and other
Indians of that region were mostly
unsupplied with guns in those days,
but they had most effective kind
of poisoned arrow. They would
catch bunch of rattlesnakes and
taking fresh buffalo liver would
make the serpents strike in it until
their poison glands were exhausted
and the meat fairly reeked with the
venom.
After that they would leave the
liver in the sun until it became pu-
trid. Into this mess they would dip
their war arrows. 1t made nasty.
poison.
With such an arrow the scout was
struck in the leg. 1t carried, of
course, not only snake venom, but
all kinds of possibilities of blood poi
soning. By good luck first rate
army surgeon was at hand. He saved
the scouts life.
This happened in the spring. Ev-
cry spring after that the mans leg
would break out with sores and boils
and sundry other Affections. It look
ed as though the case were proved
for the witch doctors.
The physicians went into the life
history of the patient and found
that, long before he stopped the
poisoned arrow he had been afflicted
with breaking out every spring.
He was one of those people who load
up on animal diet all winter and
-.-eI q ~1eo..;.,a n,.+ when the co.,
son breaks. It had merely settled in
the weak spot Next year he attend
ed to his liver early and had no fur
ther trouble.
In the treatment of rattlesnake
bites the rough and ready physi-
clans of the backwoods scored again
on the modern scientist. In spite of
analysis and laborious experiments
and Government prizes, the treat
ment discovered by the pioneers
when New York was a wilderness is
still standard.
Cut the wound, suck it out, burn
or cauterize the spot and keep the
patient drunk on whiskey until the
danger is past. Medical men have
tried all manner of substitutes, but
come back to the original method.
The sucking, of course, is to get
out as much poison as possible; the
cauterization prevents local infec-
ton, and the whiskey keeps the heart
going in its task of clearing up the
blood. Strychnine, which is a pow
erful heart stimulant, has been tried
as substitute, but with rather un-
satisfactory results. There is the
danger of overriding it and adding
strychnine poisoning to the patients
troubles.
Then, again, whiskey, while it
stimulates the heart, also deadens
the brain. That helps the patient to
bear the terrible pain of snake bite
at time when ordinary anastfetics
would be dangerous.
So the old, untutored doctor of the
backwoods has beaten modern SCI
ence on two counts.