 | The Poison Bugaboo |  |
WHISKY VS. SNAKEBITE
Be it remembered always that death following snake bite is not necessarily the same thing as death from snake bite. Error in treatment plays no small part in vitiating the statistics. For "error" read "whisky." Whoever is primarily responsible for the hoary superstition that liquor in huge doses is useful in snake poisoning has many a life to answer for. Apart from any adventitious aid whatsoever, whether from a snake or any other source, a whole bottle of raw whisky forced down the throat of a man unaccustomed to alcohol is pretty likely to kill him, and is absolutely certain to cause grave poisoning. Add to this that it is given, often, in such a manner that the reaction from it comes contemporaneously with the heart collapse caused by the venom, and a telling commentary upon the method is suggested. It is a question whether alcohol should ever be given in such cases without the advice of a physician. Certain it is that it should not be poured into the victim in quantities limited only by the flask-contents of the bystanders.
Several years ago I saw two interestingly contrasted cases of copperhead bite. The first patient was a powerful, full-blooded, temperate, Irish day-laborer who, while road-mending, was bitten on the back of the hand between two fingers. His fellows hustled him off to a room over a neighboring saloon, where they proceeded to administer the classic treatment. Before the doctor arrived they had introduced a quart and a half of whisky into a stomach unused to anything stronger than beer in small quantities. Six hours later, when I saw the man through the wreckage of chairs, tables, and bedding, four battered friends were trying to hold him down. They thought he was having convulsions from the snake venom. He wasn't. He was having delirium tremens from the whisky. His arm and shoulder were purple and swollen. Later he collapsed
"Will he die?" I asked the doctor.
"He won't die of the bite, but I think he will of the whisky," replied the disgusted practitioner.
But he didn't. His splendid physique pulled him through. It was long, however, before he wholly recovered from the effects of the two poisons.
This was in a Hudson River town. Only a few miles away a negro boy, shortly after, was struck by a copperhead on the bare leg. The wound was a deep, double-fanged puncture. While the boy's father rushed for whisky, his mother ran for the doctor. The doctor got there first. He opened up the wound and rubbed in permanganate of potash to oxidize the venom and destroy its toxic properties. When I talked with the boy, two days later, he was hobbling about on a crutch, and the swelling had almost subsided. Setting the boy's lesser age and resistant power against the fact of the laborer's being bitten in a worse place (for crotaline venom is much more effective in an upper limb or extremity than in a lower), we have a fairly illustrative instance of the relative merits of alcoholic and non-alcoholic measures.
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