Chapter 5

The view that vaccinia is attenuated variola is well known, and has been extensively adopted by English physicians. If the opinion means anything, it signifies that the two diseases are in essence one and the same, differing only in degree. M. Pasteur has recently found that by passing the bacillus of "rouget" of pigs through rabbits, he can effect a considerable attenuation of the "rouget" virus. He has shown that rabbits inoculated with the bacillus of rouget become very ill and die, but if the inoculations be carried through a series of rabbits, a notable modification results in the bacillus. As regards the rabbits themselves, no favorable change occurs--they are all made very ill, or die. But if inoculation be made on pigs from those rabbits, at the end of the series it is found that the pigs have the disease in a mild form, and, moreover, that they enjoy immunity from further attacks of "rouget." This simply means that the rabbits have effected, or the bacillus has undergone while in them, an attenuation of virulence. So the pigs may be "vaccinated" with the modified virus, have the disease in a mild form, and thereafter be protected from the disease. The analogy between this process and the accepted view of vaccinia is very close. The variolous virus is believed to pass through the cow, and there to become attenuated, so that inoculations from the cow-pox no longer produce variola in the human subject, but cow-pox (vaccinia). As an allied process, though of very different result, mention may be made of some collateral experiments of Pasteur, also performed recently. Briefly, it has been discovered that the bacillus of the "rouget" of pigs undergoes an increase of virulence by being cultivated through a series of pigeons. Inoculations from the last of the series of pigeons give rise to a most intense form of the disease. It will be remembered that the discovery of the bacillus of "rouget" of pigs was due to the late Dr. Thuillier.--_Lancet._

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Very few persons realize the necessity of cultivating an equable temper and of avoiding passion. Many persons have met with sudden death, the result of a weak heart and passionate nature.

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CONVENIENT VAULTS.

This is a subject which will bear line upon line and precept upon precept. Many persons have availed themselves of the cheap and easy means which we have formerly recommended in the shape of the daily use of absorbents, but a larger number strangely neglect these means, and foul air and impure drainage are followed by disease and death. Sifted coal ashes and road dust are the remedy, kept in barrels till needed for use. A neat cask, filled with these absorbents, with a long-handled dipper, is placed in the closet, and a conspicuous placard directs every occupant to throw down a dipper full before leaving. The vaults, made to open on the outside, are then as easily cleaned twice a year as sand is shoveled from a pit. No drainage by secret, underground seams in the soil can then poison the water of wells; and no effluvia can arise to taint the air and create fevers. On this account, this arrangement is safer and better than water-closets. It is far cheaper and simpler, and need never get out of order. There being no odor whatever, if properly attended to, it may be contiguous to the dwelling. An illustration of the way in which the latter is accomplished is shown by Fig. 1, which represents a neat addition to a kitchen wing, with hip-roof, the entrance being either from the kichen through an entry, or from the outside as shown by the steps. Fig. 2 is a plan, showing the double walls with interposed solid earth, to exclude any possible impurity from the cellar in case of neglect. The vaults may be reached from the outside opening, for removing the contents. In the whole arrangement there is not a vestige of impure air, and it is as neat as a parlor; and the man who cleans out the vaults say it is no more unpleasant than to shovel sand from a pit.

Those who prefer may place the closet at a short distance from the house, provided the walk is flanked on both sides with evergreen trees; for no person should be compelled to encounter drifting snows to reach it--an exposure often resulting in colds and sickness. A few dollars are the whole cost, and civilization and humanity demand as much.--_Country Gentleman_.

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POISONOUS SERPENTS AND THEIR VENOM.

By Dr. G. ARCHIE STOCKWELL.

Chemistry has made astounding strides since the days of the sixteenth century, when Italian malice and intrigue swayed all Europe, and poisons and poisoners stalked forth unblushingly from cottage and palace; when crowned and mitered heads, prelates, noblemen, beneficed clergymen, courtiers, and burghers became Borgias and De Medicis in hideous infamy in their greed for power and affluence; and when the civilized world feared to retire to rest, partake of the daily repast, inhale the odors of flower or perfume, light a wax taper, or even approach the waters of the holy font. These horrors have been laid bare, their cause and effect explained, and tests discovered whereby they may be detected, providing the law with a shield that protects even the humblest individual. Great as the science is, however, it is yet far removed from perfection; and there are substances so mysterious, subtle, and dangerous as to set the most delicate tests and powerful lenses at naught, while carrying death most horrible in their train; and chief of these are the products of Nature's laboratory, that provides some sixty species of serpents with their deadly venom, enabling them in spite of sluggish forms and retiring habits to secure abundant prey and resent mischievous molestation. The hideous _trigonocephalus_ has forced the introduction and acclimation of the mongoose to the cane fields of the Western tropics; the tiger snake (_Heplocephalus curtus_) is the terror of Australian plains; the fer de lance (_Craspedocephalus lanceolatus_) renders the paradise of Martinique almost uninhabitable; the tic paloonga (_Daboii russelli_) is the scourge of Cinghalese coffee estates; the giant ehlouhlo of Natal (unclassified) by its presence secures a forbidding waste for miles about; the far famed cobra de capello (_Naja tripudians_) ravages British India in a death ratio of one-seventh of one per cent. of the dense population, annually, and is the more dangerous in that an assumed sacred character secures it largely from molestation and retributive justice; and in Europe and America we have vipers, rattlesnakes, copperheads, and moccasins (_viperinæ_ and _crotalidæ_), that if a less degree fatal, are still a source of dread and annoyance. All these forms exhibit in general like ways and like habits, and if the venom of all be not generically identical, the physiological and toxicological phenomena arising therefrom render them practically and specifically so. Indeed, their attributes appear to be mere modifications arising from difference in age, size, development, climate, latitude, seasons, and enforced habits, aided perhaps by idiosyncrasies and the incidents and accidents of life.

In delicacy of organism and perfection in mechanism and precision, the inoculatory apparatus of the venomous reptile excels the most exquisite appliances devised by the surgical implement maker's art, and it is doubtful whether it can ever be rivaled by the hand of man. The mouth of the serpent is an object for the closest study, presenting as it does a series of independent actions, whereby the bones composing the upper jaw and palate are loosely articulated, or rather attached, to one another by elastic and expansive ligaments, whereby the aperture is made conformatory, or enlarged at will--any one part being untrammeled and unimpeded in its action by its fellows. The recurved, hook-like teeth are thus isolated in application, and each venom fang independent of its rival when so desired, and it becomes possible to reach points and recesses seemingly inaccessible.

The fangs proper, those formidable weapons whose threatening presence quails the boldest opponent, inspires the fear of man, and puts to flight the entire animal kingdom--lions, tigers, and leopards, all but the restless and plucky mongoose--and whose slightest scratch is attended with such dire results, are two in number, one in each upper jaw, and placed anteriorly to all other teeth, which they exceed by five or six times in point of size. Situated just within the lips, recurved, slender, and exceeding in keenness even the finest of cambric needles, they are penetrated in their longitudinal diameter by a delicate, hair-like canal opening into a groove at the apex, terminating on the anterior surface in an elongated fissure. As the canal is straight, and the tooth falciform, a like groove or longitudinal fissure is formed at the base, where it is inclosed by the aperture of the duct that communicates with the poison apparatus.

At the base of each fang, and extending from a point just beneath the nostril, backward two-thirds the distance to the commissure of the mouth, is the poison gland, analogous to the salivary glands of man, that secretes a pure, mucous saliva, and also a pale straw-colored, half-oleaginous fluid, the venom proper. Within the gland, venom and saliva are mingled in varying proportions coincidently with circumstances; but the former slowly distills away and finds lodgment in the central portion of the excretory duct, that along its middle is dilated to form a bulb-like receptacle, and where only it may be obtained in perfect purity.

When the reptile is passive, the fangs are arranged to lie backward along the jaw, concealed by the membrane of the mouth, and thus offer no impediment to deglutition. Close inspection, however, at once reveals not only their presence, but also several rudimentary ones to supply their place in case of injury or accident. The bulb of the duct, too, is surrounded by a double aponeurotic capsule, of which the outermost and strongest layer is in connection with a muscle by whose action both duct and gland are compressed at will, conveying the secretion into the basal aperture of the fang, at the same time refilling the bulb.

When enraged and assuming the offensive and defensive, the reptile draws the posterior portion of its body into a coil or spiral, whereby the act of straightening, in which it hurls itself forward to nearly its full length, lends force to the blow, and at the same instant the fangs are erected, drawn forward in a reverse plane, permitting the points to look outward beyond the lips. The action of the compressor muscles is contemporaneous with the blow inflicted, the venom being injected with considerable violence through the apical outlets of the fangs, and into the bottom of the wound. If the object is not attained, the venom may be thrown to considerable distances, falling in drops; and Sir Arthur Cunynghame in a recent work on South Africa relates that he was cautioned not to approach a huge cobra of six feet or more in length in its death agony, lest it should hurl venom in his eyes and create blindness; he afterward found that an officer of Her Majesty's XV. Regiment had been thus injured at a distance of _forty-five feet_, and did not recover his eyesight for more than a week.[1]

[Footnote 1: Presumably the Natal ombozi, or spitting cobra, _Naja hæmachites_, who is fully equal to the feat described.]

With the infliction of the stroke and expression of its venom, the creature usually attempts to reverse its fangs in the wound, thereby dragging through and lacerating the flesh; an ingenious bit of devilishness hardly to be expected from so low a form of organism; but its frequent neglect proves it by no means mechanical, and it frequently occurs that the animal bitten drags the reptile after it a short distance, or causes it to leave its fangs in the wound. Some serpents also, as the fer de lance, black mamba, and water moccasin, are apparently actuated by most vindictive motives, and coil themselves about the part bitten, clinging with leech-like tenacity and resisting all attempts at removal. Two gentlemen of San Antonio, Texas,[2] who were bitten by rattlesnakes, subsequently asserted that after having inflicted all possible injury, the reptiles scampered away with unmistakable manifestations of pleasure. "Snakes," remarked one of the victims, "usually glide smoothly away with the entire body prone to the ground; but the fellow I encountered traveled off with an up and down wave-like motion, as if thrilled with delight, and then, getting under a large rock where he was safe from pursuit, he turned, and raising his head aloft waved it to and fro, as if saying. 'Don't you feel good now?' It would require but a brief stretch of the imagination to constitute that serpent a veritable descendant of the old Devil himself."

[Footnote 2: On the authority of N.A. Taylor and H.F. McDaniels.]

As the first blow commonly exhausts the receptacle of the duct, a second (the venom being more or less mingled and diluted by the salivary secretion) is comparatively less fatal in results; and each successive repetition correspondingly inoffensive until finally nothing but pure mucus is ejected. Nevertheless, when thoroughly aroused, the reptile is enabled to constantly hurl a secretion, since both rage and hunger swell the glands to enormous size, and stimulate to extraordinary activity--a fortuitous circumstance to which many an unfortunate is doubtless indebted for his life. The removal of a fang, however, affects its gland to a degree that it becomes almost inoperative, until such a time as a new tooth is grown, and again calls it into action, which is commonly but a few weeks at most; and a person purchasing a poisonous serpent under the supposition that it has been rendered innocuous, will do well to keep watch of its mouth lest he be some time taken unaware. It may be rendered permanently harmless, however, by first removing the fang, and then cauterizing the duct by means of a needle or wire, heated to redness; when for experimental purposes the gland may be stimulated, and the virus drawn off by means of a fine-pointed syringe.

In what the venom consists more than has already been described, we are not permitted to know. It dries under exposure to air in small scales, is soluble in water but not in alcohol, slightly reddens litmus paper, and long retains its noxious properties. It has no acrid or burning taste, and but little if any odor; the tongue pronounces it inoffensive, and the mucous surface of the alimentary track is proof against it, and it has been swallowed in considerable quantities without deleterious result--all the poison that could be extracted from a half dozen of the largest and most virile reptiles was powerless in any way to affect an unfledged bird when poured into its open beak. Chemistry is not only powerless to solve the enigma of its action, and the microscope to detect its presence, but pathology is at fault to explain the reason of its deadly effect; and all that we know is that when introduced even in most minute quantities into an open wound, the blood is dissolved, so to speak, and the stream of life paralyzed with an almost incredible rapidity. Without test or antidote, terror has led to blind, fanatical empiricism, necessarily attended with no little injury in the search for specifics, and it may be reasonably asserted that no substance can be named so inert and worthless as not to have been recommended, or so disgusting as not to have been employed; nor is any practice too absurd to find favor and adherents even among the most enlightened of the medical profession, who have rung all the changes of the therapeutical gamut from serpentaria[3] and boneset to guaco, cimicifugia, and _Aristolochia India_ to curare, alum, chalk, and mercury to arsenic; and in the way of surgical dressings and appliances everything from poultices of human fæces,[4] burying the part bitten in fresh earth,[5] or thrusting the member or entire person into the entrails of living animals, to cupping, ligatures, escharotics, and the moxa.

[Footnote 3: Serpentaria derives its name from its supposed antidotal properties, and guaco and _Aristolochia India_ enjoyed widely heralded but rapidly fleeting popularity in the two Indias for a season. Tanjore pill (black pepper and arsenic) is still extensively lauded in districts whose serpents possess little vitality, but is every way inferior to iodine.]

[Footnote 4: A Chinese remedy--as might be imagined.]

[Footnote 5: Still extensively practiced, the first in Michigan, the latter in Missouri and Arkansas, and inasmuch as one is cooling and soothing, and the other slightly provocative of perspiration in the part, are not altogether devoid of plausibility.]

Although the wounds of venomous serpents are frequently attended with fatal results, such are not necessarily invariable. There are times and seasons when all reptiles are sluggish and inactive, and when they inflict comparatively trifling injuries; and the poison is much less virulent at certain periods than others--during chilling weather for instance, or when exhausted by repeated bites in securing sustenance. Young and small serpents, too, are less virile than large and more aged specimens, and it has likewise been observed that death is more apt to follow when the poison is received at the beginning or during the continuance of the heated term.

The action of the venom is commonly so swift that its effects are manifested almost immediately after inoculation, being at once conveyed by the circulatory system to the great nervous centers of the body, resulting in rapid paralysis of such organs as are supplied with motive power from these sources; its physiological and toxicological realizations being more or less speedy accordingly as it is applied near or remote from these centers, or infused into the capillary or the venous circulation. Usually, too, an unfortunate experiences, perhaps instantaneously, an intense burning pain in the member lacerated, which is succeeded by vertigo, nausea, retching, fainting, coldness, and collapse; the part bitten swells, becomes discolored, or spotted over its surface with livid blotches, that may, ultimately, extend to the greater portion of the body, while the poison appears to effect a greater or less disorganization of the blood, not by coagulating its fibrine as Fontana surmised, but in dissolving, attenuating, and altering the form of its corpuscles, whose integrity is so essential to life, causing them to adhere to one another, and to the walls of the vessels by which they are conveyed; being no longer able to traverse the capillaries, oedema is produced, followed by the peculiar livid blush. Shakespeare would appear to have had intuitive perception of the nature of such subtle poison, when he caused the ghost to describe to Hamlet

"The leprous distillment whose effect Bears such an enmity to the blood of man That swift as quicksilver, it courses through The natural gates and alleys of the body And with sudden vigor it doth posset And curd like eager droppings into milk, The thin and wholesome blood: so did it mine And a most instant tetter marked about Most lazar like, with vile and loathsome crust All my smooth body."

It is not to be supposed, however, that all or even a major portion of the blood disks require to be changed or destroyed to produce a fatal result, since death may supervene long before such a consummation can be realized. It is the capillary circulation that suffers chiefly, since the very size and caliber of the heart cavities and trunk vessels afford them comparative immunity. But of the greatly dissolved and disorganized condition of the blood that may occur secondarily, we have evidences in the passive hæmorrhages that attack those that have recovered from the immediate effects of serpent poisoning, following or coincident with subsidence of swelling and induration; and, as with scurvy, bleeding may occur from the mouth, throat, lungs, nose, and bowels, or from ulcerated surfaces and superficial wounds, or all together, defying all styptics and hæmastatics. In a case occurring under the care of Dr. David Brainerd in the Illinois General Hospital,[6] blood flowed from the gums in great profusion, and on examination was found destitute, even under the microscope, of the faintest indications of fibrine--the principle upon which coagulation depends. The breath, moreover, gave most sickening exhalations, indicative of decomposition, producing serious illness in those exposed for any length of time to its influence. We may add, among other sequelæ, aside from death produced through primary and secondary effects, paralysis, loss of nerve power, impotence, hæmorrhage, even mortification or gangrene.

[Footnote 6: _Medical Independent_, 1855.]

The failure in myotic power of the heart and in the muscles of respiration through reflex influence of par vagum and great sympathetic nerves, whereby pulmonary circulation is impeded, are among the earliest of phenomena. Breathing becoming retarded and laborious, the necessary supply of oxygen is no longer received, and blood still venous, in that it is not relieved of its carbon, is returned through the arteries, whereby the capillaries of the brain are gorged with a doubly poisoned circulation, poisoned by both venom and carbon. In this we have ample cause for the attending train of symptoms that, beginning with drowsiness, rapidly passes into stupor followed by profound coma and ultimate dissolution--marked evidence of the fact that a chemical agent or poison may produce a mechanical disease; and autopsical research reveals absolutely nothing save the general disorganization of blood corpuscles, as already noted.