“I do not believe,” said
the curiosity dealer, “that the bite of the
gila monster is fatal. It is poisonous, no doubt,
and there have been one or two cases of death where
persons have been bitten by it, but it is always well
to remember that the teeth themselves may be in a
condition to produce blood-poisoning, which might cause
death without the assistance of any particular toxic
venom. The rattlesnake, however, which is rather
too common in the desert, is a different sort of a
chap. If he strikes you, you may just as well
make your will, and chirp your death song, as to monkey
with physicians, and squander some of the good wealth
which may be useful to your family.”
I asked him if he did not believe
in the efficacy of some of the so-called Indian snake
cures.
“There are lots of Indian remedies,”
he continued, “and snake charmers’ cures
for rattlesnake bites, which are, in my opinion, all
poppy-cock. It is claimed that the Moquai
Indians, during their Snake Dance, allow rattlesnakes
to bite them, and after applying the juice of a certain
herb suffer no ill effects from the poison. This
may be all right, but the antidote is considerable
of a secret, and you cannot buy it at your druggist’s.
“There was a chap over in France
who claimed to have produced an anti-venomous serum
which was a sure cure for the poison of a rattlesnake,
or any other old snake which you might want to have
bite you. I squandered five dollars of my hard-earned
wealth in sending for a bottle. This chap lives
at Lille, France, and manufactures his serum at the
Pasteur Institute at that place. He gives careful
directions as to how much to use, and just how to
use it, and it may be all right with some snakes which
have the reputation of being bad, but it don’t
go with our rattlers. I tried it in all sorts
of ways. I tried to get a Mexican to experiment
on, but couldn’t. None of them had much
faith in the cure not enough to let a healthy
snake bite ’em for five dollars.
“Then I tried dogs. I got
three curs, all in robust health. The first one
died in fifteen minutes after being struck by a big
rattlesnake which I had in a box, although I injected
him with a carefully measured dose of the serum.
Another one lived several hours, and made a hard struggle.
I thought at one time he might pull through, but it
was no use. He joined his friend in dog heaven
after giving his final kick four hours and fifteen
minutes after he and the snake had been introduced
to each other.
“The third one was a half-breed
bull bitch with lots of vitality. I tried to
make this one immune by injecting a dose of the serum
twenty-four hours before, and again immediately after
she was struck by the snake, but she did not do as
well as the other one, and died in three hours and
sixteen minutes. All these dogs seemed to die
from inability to breathe. The poison apparently
acts on the respiratory centres rather than directly
on the heart. They all vomited just before they
died.”
“Have you never found out what
the Indians use as an antidote?” I asked.
“No, I have tried, but they
keep it a carefully guarded secret. One reason
why I believe that the secret is so carefully preserved
is because they have no antidote, and the whole thing
is a bluff.
“You see,” continued the
collector, “in my wanderings about the country
I have run across a great many queer people, and as
you seem interested in this subject, I will tell you
an incident which happened while I was out at camp
one time at the White Tanks, catching gila monsters,
horned toads, etc.
“I remember the year well, because
I had a lot of trouble with a very useless assistant
of mine, whom I sent to Central America to collect
for me. Among the birds he brought back were
a lot of skins of the blue chatterer the
one with the purple throat, you know. He knew
I was anxious to get new species, so he thought he
would be smart and make some for me. So he manufactured
five, all with faked labels on, showing that each
species was taken at different altitudes. Unfortunately
he commenced too high, and the mountains in the vicinity
where he collected, and where the labels indicated
that the birds were taken, lacked several hundred
feet of the necessary altitude for two of the species,
so that if his labels were correct he must have shot
them out of a balloon.
“They all looked alike except
about the throat and head. One lot had a gold
band across the breast, another had the whole throat
gold, others had gold stripes or spots. I believe
he produced these gaudy effects with the lighted end
of his cigar.
“He doctored up a lot of humming-birds,
too, and made me a peck of trouble. I fired him,
all right. Dishonesty in a trade like mine is,
I think, most reprehensible, and there is no money
in it, because you are dead sure to get found out.
“He was a cute little chap,
however, and had learned a lot of tricks from the
Indians. He could change a bird’s color
by feeding it on certain kinds of food. There
is a chap in Amsterdam who does about the same thing
and brightens up old worn birds which have faded out
in the Zoological Gardens, and sends them back with
all the brilliancy of their original plumage restored;
but he cannot turn a red parrot blue, or make a gray
bird with a yellow head turn to bright orange all over,
as this chap could. He told me how he did it,
but the secret is too good to give away. But
to get back to the story about rattlesnakes:
“It was, as I said, in the spring
of ’89, a party of us were camped at the White
Tanks about forty-five miles north-west of here, and
one day a chap came into our camp, a half-breed Mexican
Indian, who called himself a snake-charmer. He
had a box of rattlesnakes which he would allow to
twine round his neck and bite him, for a dollar.
He travelled about the country giving exhibitions
with his snakes, and selling the rattlesnake cure,
which was put up in small bottles containing a brown-colored
liquid, which he claimed he made from a plant which
was a sure cure for the bite of the rattlesnake, and
a number of the boys bought this remedy, paying him
a dollar a bottle.
“He had seen our camp, as he
drove along the road to Phoenix, and he told us he
had been up country for two or three weeks visiting
some mines, where he had done very well, selling his
cure to the miners and exhibiting his snakes.
“There were several of us in
the party, and one chap, a doctor by the name of Baker,
who was always playing practical jokes. As we
were coming back to Phoenix, the next day, Miguel,
which was the snake-charmer’s real name, I believe,
although he was generally known as Mexican John, decided
to stay over a day and go back with us.
“Baker proposed that we should
see how much faith Miguel had in his own antidote.
As it happened, I had captured a very big rattlesnake
the day previous, and had him in a box in my tent.
By the aid of some forked sticks and bagging we succeeded
in fastening the snake so that he could not move.
We then pried his mouth open, and kept it open with
a small stick. We took all this trouble for the
purpose of preparing him to assist in an experiment
in which he and Mexican John were to be the principal
performers. Baker carefully cut out the poison-sacs,
which are situated just beneath the temporal muscle,
back of the eye. It was suggested that it would
be better to remove the fangs, to avoid any possibility
of danger; but Baker objected, as he said removing
the fangs would give the whole thing away.
“He took the precaution, however,
while the snake lay helpless with its mouth open,
to carefully wash the teeth, and then filled the small
openings near the end of the fangs with some dental
cement which Baker had in his outfit, which hardens
in a few minutes. You see, the fangs of a rattlesnake
are like two hypodermic syringes. They are hollow
tubes, as it were, with an opening near the point, a
little narrow slit, but one that is easily seen, if
you look for it. Through this he squirts the
poison by the aid of the temporal muscle, which he
contracts as he strikes.
“As we had removed the poison-sacs
and plugged up the fangs, this snake was not in a
very good condition to do any serious harm. He,
however, was fighting mad, and evidently did not enjoy
the operation which he had undergone. It did
not seem to hurt him any, however, for he was as lively
as a kitten when we let him loose in the box, and was
ready and anxious to strike at anything.
“Towards evening Miguel came
back to camp, and we had the snake all ready for him.
It was a much larger one than those which he had in
his box, and when we slipped it in among the others
we could easily recognize it from its size. The
boys asked John to give an exhibition of the curative
powers of his snake cure, saying that they would like
to buy some more, but wished to see it tried before
doing so.
“John was quite ready, and after
opening a bottle of the antidote he lifted the cover
of his snake box, and reached in his hand to take one
of them out. As he did so, he was immediately
struck good and hard by our latest addition to the
collection.
“My, how he carried on!
He looked hastily into the box, and then at the marks
on his hand, where the fangs had cut in. He gave
one screech, grabbed a knife, cut the place wide open,
and commenced to suck it fiercely, at the same time
praying and cursing almost in the same breath.
“The boys begged him to apply
his antidote, asking him what was the matter and why
he appeared to be so frightened, but all the answer
they could get was, ‘Don’t touch me.
I am going to die! I’m going to die!’
“And say, what do you think?
He did die! He got weaker and weaker.
His teeth were clenched, and he refused to take whiskey,
although the boys forced some down his throat.
In a little while he became insensible, and in less
than an hour he was dead.
“‘Scared to death,’
you say? Well, maybe so; anyway, the boys said
the laugh was on Baker!”