For example, it was recommended to cut out the bite, fill the cavity with gunpowder, and blow up the flesh around the wound.In 1846, Robert Avery, a farm servant on the Darling Downs was reaping wheat when a green snake bit him on the hand.
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He refused the offer to have the wounded area cut out with a razor and expired soon after in excruciating pain. Given the option, it was little wonder he declined.The flesh around the bite had to be removed, whether hacked out by blunt knife, bitten out, or cut out by any sharp or blunt instrument at hand. Called “scarifying” or “excising”, it meant a deep hole was made in the flesh.A red-hot iron was later inserted into this sensitive crater to stop the bleeding.While sucking the bite and then cutting out the affected area was always the first action – it was accepted that snake poison could be safely swallowed – there were some variations on what should be poured into the wound.Options included spirits of ammonia, powdered alum or lime, sal volatile (ammonium carbonate), potassium permanganate and even brandy.A paste from the ipecacuanha plant, better known as the drug ipecac, was sometimes applied.A Mr Horne, describing the treatments as an act of “innocent barbarity”, sought support for the Government to offer a reward for a simple and effective treatment that didn’t involve painful – and doubtful – operations.He also suggested, to no avail, a bounty on venomous snakes to be instantly paid by officers, police or otherwise, on the production of the heads of the reptiles.
By the 1850s, the preferred remedy was to first apply a ligature to stop the circulation while attempting to suck out the poison, although this too was agonising.The ligature had to be tightened until the pain was unbearable, and then squeezed once more. Another ligature was placed above it and the bite area pinched up by the thumb and two fingers, and snipped out with a pair of scissors, or cut around with a knife.There were also some questionable solutions, such as the strange cure of a Chinese labourer at New Farm in 1849.He seized a black snake by the tail and, whirling it swiftly round, dashed its head against a tree. When the snake was dead, he pointed to his foot, where there were some marks, exactly like those made by a snake bite.He pulled up what appeared to be common couch grass, and, after chewing it, applied it to the punctures. He then procured a green frog and, placing it on the wounds, bandaged up his foot.He suffered no ill effects and although there was some debate on whether he had been bitten at all, it was accepted as worthy of further investigation.A Gympie gold digger said he had saved his dog by immersing it in water and a farmer whose cow was bitten by a black snake swore by the free use of colonial rum. Two bottles were emptied into the heifer and a day later she was back chewing grass. But the most extraordinary claim goes to “Veracity” of Nudgee, who in a letter to the Queenslander in 1868, wrote that he had gone to the stable to saddle a horse in the dark. All was well until he came to the crupper, the strap at the back of a saddle.“On passing that round the animal’s tail it seemed rounder and longer than usual but that was nothing out of the way, as there are plenty of cruppers about, round ones amongst them. I thought it had been changed, so it was passed under the tail and I then tried to buckle it but could feel neither buckle-hole nor the end of the crupper!“My surprise may be imagined when I found the ‘crupper’ to consist of a carpet snake about four feet long.”The Editor was sceptical: “That will do, Mr ‘Veracity’. You have immortalised the rich flats of the Nudgee and have given to the world the most extraordinary case of snake audacity yet put in print. It is with the future to beat the story you have sent us.“But a line must be drawn somewhere regarding snakes. We, with your permission, will draw it at the point where the attempt was made to ‘buckle it’ on as a crupper.”
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