In what the venom consists more than has already been described, we are not permitted to know.  It dries under exposure to air in small scales, is soluble in water but not in alcohol, slightly reddens litmus paper, and long retains its noxious properties.  It has no acrid or burning taste, and but little if any odor; the tongue pronounces it inoffensive, and the mucous surface of the alimentary track is proof against it, and it has been swallowed in considerable quantities without deleterious result—­all the poison that could be extracted from a half dozen of the largest and most virile reptiles was powerless in any way to affect an unfledged bird when poured into its open beak.  Chemistry is not only powerless to solve the enigma of its action, and the microscope to detect its presence, but pathology is at fault to explain the reason of its deadly effect; and all that we know is that when introduced even in most minute quantities into an open wound, the blood is dissolved, so to speak, and the stream of life paralyzed with an almost incredible rapidity.  Without test or antidote, terror has led to blind, fanatical empiricism, necessarily attended with no little injury in the search for specifics, and it may be reasonably asserted that no substance can be named so inert and worthless as not to have been recommended, or so disgusting as not to have been employed; nor is any practice too absurd to find favor and adherents even among the most enlightened of the medical profession, who have rung all the changes of the therapeutical gamut from serpentaria[3] and boneset to guaco, cimicifugia, and Aristolochia India to curare, alum, chalk, and mercury to arsenic; and in the way of surgical dressings and appliances everything from poultices of human faeces,[4] burying the part bitten in fresh earth,[5] or thrusting the member or entire person into the entrails of living animals, to cupping, ligatures, escharotics, and the moxa.

[Footnote 3:  Serpentaria derives its name from its supposed antidotal properties, and guaco and Aristolochia India enjoyed widely heralded but rapidly fleeting popularity in the two Indias for a season.  Tanjore pill (black pepper and arsenic) is still extensively lauded in districts whose serpents possess little vitality, but is every way inferior to iodine.]

  [Footnote 4:  A Chinese remedy—­as might be imagined.]

[Footnote 5:  Still extensively practiced, the first in Michigan, the latter in Missouri and Arkansas, and inasmuch as one is cooling and soothing, and the other slightly provocative of perspiration in the part, are not altogether devoid of plausibility.]

Although the wounds of venomous serpents are frequently attended with fatal results, such are not necessarily invariable.  There are times and seasons when all reptiles are sluggish and inactive, and when they inflict comparatively trifling injuries; and the poison is much less virulent at certain periods than others—­during chilling weather for instance, or when exhausted by repeated bites in securing sustenance.  Young and small serpents, too, are less virile than large and more aged specimens, and it has likewise been observed that death is more apt to follow when the poison is received at the beginning or during the continuance of the heated term.