DOG BITES AND SNAKE POISONS.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1522, 12 March 1886, Page 3

DOG BITES AND SNAKE POISONS.

M. Pasteur's recent discovery of a cure for hydrophobia has naturally attracted the attention of the world to the quiet laboratory in which the great scientist conducts his experiments. While in Europe the fatal bite of the mad dog is dreaded, so the deadly bite of the snake is the hydrophobia of the East. During his recent exploration of the Kalahari Desert, Mr Farini found that the natives with whom he was thrown into contact invariably carried a pouch of deadly dried snake poison as an antidote to the bite of a snake. The following account of a conversation which one of our staff had with Mr Farini may not be mal a propos: — " While exploring the Kalahari," said Mr Farini, " where extremely poisonous snakes abound, several cases of the | nude natives being bitten by them I came under my notice, and, strange to j say, the untutored savage, although | not knowing anything about similia sim ilibus curnaytur, cure themselves j inoculating with virus. There is ! not a native or a hunter that does not j carry either the dried body of a deadly I poisonous reptile called N'anboo, the | poison sacks of the puff adder, yellow | cobra, or capella. Their modus operanjdi is :—As soon as possible after being j bitten they make slight incisions close I to where the poison fangs entered, into | which they sprinkle some of the dried ; and powdered virus. The first effect is to induce sleepiness, the swelling I soon goes down, and in a day or two they l are as well aa ever. Three of my oxen I were bitten, and cured by inoculation. Oue case of the bushman who had cured the oxen I must specially mention. He boasted of not beiug afraid of being bitten. One day while walking ahead of the waggons I discovered a full grown capella lying under a bush. I callcl the bushman and asked him to catch it if he was not afraid of being bitten. He replied he would if I would give him a roll of tobacco. I refused, not wishing to be accessory to his death. While I was waitng for the driver's whip to despatch the snake the bushman gave the reptile a kick with his bare foot, and the horrible thing bit him. But the bushman coolly took from a little skin pouch some poison sacks, cut a piece off and reduced it to powder, pricked his foot near the puncture, which had commenced to swell, and rubbed the virus powder in ; one of the bushmen who had killed the snake aud extracted the poison cysts, handed one of them to him ; he equeezed a drop of poison out of it into some water aud drank it; he seemed to fall into a kind of stupor, in which he remained some hours. At first the swelling increased rapidly, but began to subside after some hours; next morning he inoculated again 5 that night the swelling had completely disappeared, and the fourth day he seemed as well as ever, and claimed the roll of tobacco." Mr Farini took the precaution to bring home the poison of several snake*, and a portion of a N'anboo, which he is sending to M. Pasteur to experiment with.— Pall Mall Gazitte.