POISON OF THE VIPER.

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the finger and another round the wrist, I repaired to the^kitchen and rubbed in oil before the fire. In about fiveminutes I became violently sick; blindness, and faintingfits followed, and a feeling of utter prostration and dissolu-tion. The pains I endured from head to foot, internally andexternally, beggar all description: my hand and arm swelledto an enormous size : crimson streaks proceeded from thebitten finger to the arm-pit, under which the glands wereswelled to the size of pigeon’s eggs. Two physicians whofirst saw me declared my case desperate and prescribedabsurd remedies. At length arrived Doctor Nudi, who hadbeen a surgeon in the British army and present at the deathof General Wolf, at the battle of Quebec. The worthyveteran had treated a case like mine on a former occasion.He ordered me into a hot bath ; bottles of hot water at myfeet; plenty of hot blankets over me ; and internally, fiftydrops of volatile alkali in Port wine, every quarter of anhour. Cold applications of vinegar and water were appliedto the affected hand and arm. Brief—I fell into a mostprofuse perspiration, which was kept up for twenty-fourhours. In three days I was able to sit up : the swelling ofthe limb and hand gradually subsided ; and what muchsurprised me, numerous warts, which previously disfigured myhands, had entirely disappeared upon my recovery, that is,in a few days, without leaving a trace behind. My friend,Steuart, killed all my vipers, and I did the like by all suchas I met with in the fields ever after.

About two months after I was bitten by the viper, anapothecary’s assistant who had received a prescription forviper broth, having cut off the heads of half a dozen, whichwere lying on the counter, took them up to throw themaway, when one of them seized him by the tip of the indexfinger, and stuck the teeth to the bone. Such was thequantity of poison absorbed, that he died in twelve hours.