SHAKE POISON AND HUMAN POISON,

Otago Witness, Issue 2104, 21 June 1894, Page 49

SHAKE POISON AND HUMAN POISON,

The bite of the rattlesnake is almost always fatal to man. Yet this snake is never affected by the injection of its own poison into its ow» blood, neither when enraged it bites itself nor? when its venom is injected by artificial means 1 to test the question. Speaking on the latter point Dr S. Weir Mitchell, an expert ou inakepoison, says : — " I have over and over tried this experiment, but in no case have I seen death result. Why should this be ? "

Dr Mitchell further 6aya :—": — " The many noxious compounds man carries in his liver and gastric glands (the stomach) are fatal if they enter the blood in any large amount. There is scarcely an organ in man's body which is not a possible source of poison to him. Small doses are constantly passing iuto and out of his blood. The question is whether he can get rid of it as fast as it accumulates."

Alluding to death by rheumatism, gout, and kidney disease, an eminent London physician says :—": — " Thus man is poisoned by the products of his own body." Now let us cite a passage from a man's experience as related by himself. The time extends over a period from March 1888 to May 1889, more than a year. He says : — " My head! used to whirl around, and I had frequent bouts of faintuess and giddiness ; and at such times I used to fall down, no matter where I was. This would occur txoo or three times a day. For three weeks I was confined to my bed. I grew gradually weaker and weaker and lost a deal of sleep. I felt worse tired in the morning than when I went to bed. After a while I became nervous, and my legs trembled and shook under me to such a degree that I feared to walk out. I had great pain in my kidneys, and the secretion which I voided from them was thick and yellow as the yolk of an egg. Month after month passed and I failed more and more, and could hardly crawl about.

" I had a doctor attending me, but his medicines did not benefit me. He said my liver and kidneys were in a bad way, and that he never saw secretions passed in such a state. After treating me six months, he told me that medicine could do no more for me and advised me to go to a hospital. I went to the Peterborough Hospital, but got worae while there. The hospital doctors refused to tell me what ailed me. Having spent two months there, I got anxious and returned to my home, utterly disheartened. I continued to send to the hospital for medicine, which I took for three months lopger. I was now so emaciated that my frieudn who came to see me said I would never get well. %

" In this condition I continued until May 1889, when one day an umbrella vendor called at my house, and, seeing how ill I was, said his wife had been cured of a serious illness by Mother SeigelV Curative Syrup. He spoke so earnestly of it that I determined to try it. After taking the Syrup for 10 days I felt in better spirits ; my food agreed ,with me, and from that time I gained strength daily. Persevering with it, I was soon able to return to my work as healthy and strong as ever. Since then I have been in the best of health. You are at liberty to publish the above faebs, and I will gladly reply to any inquiries. — Yours truly (Signed), Read Wklfake, Ramsay, St. Mary's, Hunts, February 18, 1892."

No brief comment can do justice to this remarkable case. What the public nueda to know and to remember ia this : Mr Welfare's whole system was poisoned by the products of a torpid and inactive digestion. Thece had entered his blood, as Dr Mitchell describes. The nervous system was disordered and h=vlfparalysed ; hence the faiutness and falling fits. Rattlesnake poison kills by paralysing the nerves which actuate the lungs ; it kills by suffocation. Human poison, arising from indigestion and dyspepsia, always operates in the same direction, causing asthma in its worst forms. It then attacks the heart and kidneys, causing the state of things Mr Welfare mentions. Nothing more noxious or, in the end, surely fatal exists in any poisonous reptile. And yet people trifle with the disoasa ! aad doctors seem not to understand it.

Mother Seigel's Curative Syrup -cures by stimulating the kidneja, 6kin, and boweh, and toning the gastric glands. Who, then, is man's moat deadly enemy ? Careless and ignorant man himself. Use the remedy when the earliest Fym.farMs apjieur.

— "I fear." sadly said the postage sl.aoip wh*jn ie found itsalf fa-toned to a love-letter, "tbat I am not sticking to facts."

— After dreaming three years for a fairy princa riding inlo town on a fierce charger, with a glitteriDg sword hanging by his side, a Leicester girl is about to marry a ir^n has two chargers that are barae-scrl in -,\ milk-carfe, and she is considered very lucky these hard times to get him.