First Care For Snake Bites
These are much more dangerous than the preceding, and require more powerful remedies. The bites of the different kinds of snakes do not all act alike, but affect people in different ways.
● Treatment of the part bitten.
The great thing is to prevent the poison getting into the blood; and, if possible, to remove the whole of it at once from the body.
A pocket-handkerchief, a piece of tape or cord, or, in fact, of anything that is at hand, should be tied tightly round the part of the body bitten; if it be the leg or arm, immediately above the bite, and between it and the heart.
The bite should then be sucked several times by any one who is near.
There is no danger in this, provided the person who does it has not got the skin taken off any part of his mouth. What has been sucked into the mouth should be immediately spit out again.
But if those who are near have sufficient nerve for the operation, and a suitable instrument, they should cut out the central part bitten, and then bathe the wound for some time with warm water, to make it bleed freely.
The wound should afterwards be rubbed with a stick of lunar caustic, or, what is better, a solution of this—60 grains of lunar caustic dissolved in an ounce of water—should be dropped into it.
The band should be kept on the part during the whole of the time that these means are being adopted.
The wound should afterwards be covered with lint dipped in cold water.
The best plan, however, to be adopted, if it can be managed, is the following:
Take a common wine-glass, and, holding it upside down, put a lighted candle or a spirit-lamp into it for a minute or two. This will take out the air.
Then clap the glass suddenly over the bitten part, and it will become attached, and hold on to the flesh.
The glass being nearly empty, the blood containing the poison will, in consequence, flow into it from the wound of its own accord.
This process should be repeated three or four times, and the wound sucked, or washed with warm water, before each application of the glass.
As a matter of course, when the glass is removed, all the blood should be washed out of it before it is applied again.
● Constitutional Treatment.
There is mostly at first great depression of strength in these cases, and it is therefore requisite to give some stimulant; a glass of hot brandy-and-water, or twenty drops of sal-volatile, is the best that can be given. When the strength has returned, and if the patient has not already been sick, a little mustard in hot water should be given, to make him so.
If, on the other hand, as is often the case, the vomiting is excessive, a large mustard poultice should be placed over the stomach, and a grain of solid opium swallowed in the form of a pill, for the purpose of stopping it.
Only one of these pills should be given by a non-professional person.
In all cases of bites from snakes, send for a surgeon as quickly as possible, and act according to the above directions until he arrives.
If he is within any reasonable distance, content yourself by putting on the band, sucking the wound, applying the glass, and, if necessary, giving a little brandy-and-water.
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