Immunisation against serpents' venom and the treatment of snake-bite with antivenene / an address delivered by Professor Fraser on Friday, March 20, 1896.

Date:
1896
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Immunisation against serpents' venom and the treatment of snake-bite with antivenene / an address delivered by Professor Fraser on Friday, March 20, 1896. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    time, at least suggest that, by means apart from the use of remedies, some measure of success may actually have been obtained. Many of these legends and statements are probably of _ great significance, and, in connection with facts derived from experiment, which to-night I have to describe, they possess a deep interest. We learn from these legends that from a remote period of time the belief has existed that a power may be acquired by man of freely handling venomous serpents, and even of successfully resisting the poisonous effects of their bites. The Psylli of Africa, the Marsi of Italy, the Gouni of India, and other ancient tribes and sects, were stated to have been immune against serpents’ bites, and this immunity has been explained on the supposition that serpents’ blood was present in the veins of the members of these tribes and sects. In more modern times and, indeed, at the present day, the same belief is expressed in the writings of many travellers. In ‘ A New and Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea,’ by William Bosman, published in 1705, an account is given of the great “reverence and respect ” of the negroes for snakes, worshipped by them as gods; in connection with which the following statements are made. “ But what is best of all is that these idolatrous snakes don’t do the least mischief in the world to mankind; for if by chance in the dark one treads upon them, and they bite or sting him, it is not more pre- judicial than the sting of millipedes. Wherefore the natives would fain persuade us that it is good to be bitten or stung by these snakes, upon the plea that one is thereby secured and protected from the sting of any poisonous snake ” (p. 379). At Southern Africa, the Eev. John Campbell, in 1813, observed tliat it was “very common among the Hottentots to catch a serpent, squeeze out the poison from under his teeth, and drink it. They say it only makes them a little giddy, and imagine that it preserves them afterwards from receiving any injury from the sting of that reptile” (p. 401). Drummond Hay, in his work on Western Barbary, published in 1844, gives a description of the performances by members of a sect of snake-charmers, called the Eisowy, who freely handled, and allowed themselves to be bitten by serpents proved to be venomous by a rapidly fatal experiment performed on a fowl. At the ter- mination of the exhibition, the Eisowy, apparently as a usual part of the performance, “ commenced eating or rather chewing ” a poison- ous snake, “ which, writhing with pain (to quote Mr. Hay’s words), bit him in the neck and hands until it was actually destroyed by the Eisowy’s teeth.” He states that, on another occasion, at Tangier, a young Moor, who was witnessing the performance of a snake- charmer, ridiculed his exhibition as an imposture, and having been dared by the Eisowy to touch one of the serpents, the lad did so, was bitten by one of them, and shortly afterwards expired. In connection with my subject, a special interest is attached to the