The
boots were again sold, and the next unfortunate owner died in an
equally short time. It was then thought wise to examine the
boots, and in one of them was found, firmly embedded, the fang of
the serpent. It was supposed that in pulling on the boots each of
the subsequent owners had scratched himself and became fatally
inoculated with the venom, which was unsuspected and not
combated. The case is so strange as to appear hypothetic, but the
authority seems reliable.
The following are three cases of snake-bite reported by surgeons
of the United States Army, two followed by recovery, and the
other by death: Middleton mentions a private in the Fourth
Cavalry, aged twenty-nine, who was bitten by a rattlesnake at
Fort Concho, Texas, June 27, 1866. The bite opened the phalangeal
joint of the left thumb, causing violent inflammation, and
resulted in the destruction of the joint. Three years afterward
the joint swelled and became extremely painful, and it was
necessary to amputate the thumb. Campbell reports the case of a
private of the Thirteenth Infantry who was bitten in the throat
by a large rattlesnake. The wound was immediately sucked by a
comrade, and the man reported at the Post Hospital, at Camp
Cooke, Montana, three hours after the accident.
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