Page:Australia, from Port Macquarie to Moreton Bay.djvu/245

 remedies, and ordered to afford immediate aid to those who might have been bitten. Many were bitten accordingly, (the snakes seeming in no way loth to expedite the result), and all exhibited the symptoms usually consequent upon the action of a powerful animal poison; but none died. We shall state a couple of cases with the mode of treatment. A native woman, whilst crossing near the customhouse, was seen, on emerging from the water, to shake off something from her foot. This, to several spectators, appeared to be a water-snake. The woman, after advancing for a few paces from the river, fell down, and was immediately carried into the pandaul. On examining her feet, two small but distinct wounds were perceived on the ankle of the right leg; her skin was cold, her face livid, her breathing laborious, her pulse scarcely perceptible. A ligature was immediately placed above the wound, which had been previously enlarged with a lancet, and a piece of carbonate of ammonia, well moistened with pure nitric acid, applied, while thirty drops of the eau-de-luce were administered nearly at the same time in a glass of water. In five minutes more a similar dose was poured down her throat, which seemed rather to increase the spasmodic affection of the chest, but the pulse at the wrist became distinct, though feeble. A third dose was repeated in three minutes more, on which she uttered a scream, and began to breathe more freely. Ten minutes had now elapsed since she had been carried into the