such a situation for some time: it is well known that frogs will live and cry in the stomach of a Serpent.”[1]
The food of the Viper consists of mice, shrews, moles; of lizards and frogs; and occasionally, of birds. It does not appear to strike the prey with its fangs, so as to poison it, but to take it exactly in the manner of the harmless Snakes. It is capable of long abstinence; individuals having been kept in a box for six months without food, yet retaining their health and vivacity unabated.
Although the poison of the Viper is rarely followed by fatal results to man in this country, it frequently produces severe symptoms of a highly threatening character. The remedies considered most efficacious are ammonia, administered internally, and olive oil applied externally; especially the latter. For the successful application of salad or olive oil to the part bitten by a Viper, we are indebted to William Oliver, a viper-catcher at Bath, who discovered the remedy more than a century ago. The public experiments on this subject are thus recorded:—“On the 1st of June, 1735, in the presence of a number of persons, Oliver suffered himself to be bit by an old black Viper (brought by one of the company) upon the wrist and joint of the thumb of the right hand, so that drops of blood came out of the wounds: he immediately felt a violent pain both at the top of his thumb and up his arm, even before the Viper was loosened from his hand: soon after he felt a pain, resembling that of burning, trickle up his arm; in a few
- ↑ “Penny Cyclopedia,” xxvi. 248
