Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1913-06-26
FIND EPILEPSY GUnEE:
RattIesnake Poison Used With
Success by Doctors.
Patients Given Up as Hopeless 6ene,
fitted, Though injection Is Painful
in Some Instances-Recovery
in Many Cases,

New YCTk-Curing Epilepsy WITH
hypodernic injections Of rattlesnake
venom is the achievement of DR. Ed
ward E. Hicks of this city, specialist
in mental and nervous diseases and a
prominent alienist, who for several
months, it has just come TO light, has
been successfully experimenting at
the Swedish hospital. Out of twenty
cases he has treated for this malady
only one has failed TO respond, and
yet there is not the slightest doubt in
the minds of the physicians who have
watched Doctor Hicks experiments
that a permanent cure can be effected
by injections of snake poison
Marvellous results attended his
treatment from the very start, and OF
the twenty epileptics who submitted
to the artificial snake bites only one
suffered violent spasms after being in
jected with the venom. The other
nineteen have had few occurrences,
and within year they will be abso-
lutely cured, Doctor Hicks said. pro-
vided they receive the hypodermic in
jections Of venom at regular intervals,
The discovery of snake venom as
a cure for epilepsy was made by DR..
Ralph H SpangleT, a distinguished
Philadelphia physician, who had his
attention called to an epiIeptic who
had been free from attacks from the
time he was bitten by a RATHER. The
patient had had epileptic fits for fiji
teen years, and when he was brought
to Doctor Spangler he hadn't had one
in two years, not since the time he
was bitten.
Doctor Spangler, who has been
using the venom for chest and throat
diseases in. cases OF tuberculosis, had
several epileptic patients under his
care at the time. and decided to give
them injections of the dried, glycerin-
lied poison of the rattlesnake. The
effect was gratifying and tended to
show that, after all, cases that were
regarded as absolutely hopeless could
be cured, and only by the snake poi
son.
Doctor Hicks, the first and only
physician in Brooklyn to attempt the
cure Of epilepsy with the venom, was
convinced Of the efficiency of the
crotaln treatment, as it is known
in the medical world. when he made
his first experiment at the Swedish
hospital The patient was a man who
had suffered from epilepsy for years.
and not long after receiving the first
injection Of snake poison the desired
effect was noted. The severity of the
attacks was modified. the intervals be-
tween the seizures were progressively
heightened, and a most desirable eff
feet Oh the apprehensive mental state
Of the sufferer characteristic Of cpl
Ieptics was produced.
Doctor Hicks, as did Doctor Spang
Ter, discovered that the form Of cpl
Iepsy most influenced by the venom
was the so-called idiopathic or genu-
inc epilepsy, for which there is no as
certainable cause. He found that the
organic eplepsies, including those
forms arising from traumatic LESSONS
Of the skull or brain, or those forms
associated with organic disease Of the
brain, such as tuners, did not yield
to the venom treatment. Nor was
there any influence on alcoholic cpl
lepsy, or any influence arising from
uraemic conditions