University of Virginia Library

WHEN RATTLESNAKES KILL

Thirteen cases of death following rattlesnake and copperhead bite in which satisfactory clinical data were obtainable, are given by Prentiss Willson. Of the victims, five were young children, one was a fourteen-year-old boy, one a chronic drunkard, and one a leper who submitted to the stroke of a captive rattlesnake in the mad hope that it would cure his affliction. It did—in twenty-four hours. Of the remaining five, three were dosed with alcohol in large quantities. In several of the cases, notably those of the children, there seemed to be at least an even chance of recovery, when the ligatures binding the affected limb were loosened to relieve the pain, with quickly fatal results. Two of the fatalities were attributed, not immediately to the venom, but to the secondary blood-poisoning, this being the case with the only copperhead bite in the list.

Death resulting typically from crotaline poisoning occurred in two instances, one the fourteen-year-old boy, who was struck by a

large rattlesnake and died in six hours, despite skilled and prompt medical attendance; the other, a Dr. Post, into whose veins, it would appear, the poison entered immediately, since a jet of blood spurted from the wound inflicted by the captive rattlesnake. The man passed from great agony into coma, from which he never rallied, death ensuing in five hours after the bite. There is nothing in these data to indicate that a full-grown man in normal health, and with proper treatment, will succumb to crotaline poisoning unless the venom enters a vein, direct.

In the matter of the comparative potency of snake poisons, there are apparent contradictions. In the order of recorded fatalities, the rattlesnake ranks easily first, with the water moccasin a rather distant second, and the copperhead a very poor third. Yet experiments upon animals indicate that moccasin venom is five times as powerful as rattlesnake, though only three times as powerful as copperhead. Taking the cobra as the basis of estimate, it requires only twice as much moccasin venom as it does cobra poison to kill a guinea pig, whereas it requires six times as much copperhead and ten times as much rattlesnake virus. Why, then, is the rattler pre-eminent over its more virulent cousins? Probably for two reasons—the greater amount of venom secreted, and the superior power with which the rattler drives its fangs home.