SCALED LIKE A SERPENT A Policeman's Strange Malady from an Australian Snake-Bite.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 421, 20 November 1889, Page 4

SCALED LIKE A SERPENT A Policeman's Strange Malady from an Australian Snake-Bite.

Policeman Edward' Dawson, of the Fourth District, Philadelphia, visited the Zoological Garden there, not to see the animals, pub to seek medical advice. On Officer Dawson's hand between the second and third fingers is a little open wound," no larger than a pin head, that has remained so since 1866, when he was bitten by a ~ black snake in Australia. He wanted to find out whether the keepers of the Zoo had any particular specific for the bite of a snake, and told a remarkable story. Dawson passed his boyhood in Berwick Township, Gibbs Land, Province of Victoria. When a boy of fifteen years, playing in the bush, he was bitten. He ran home and his mother sucked the wound to extract the venom. His father, who was a high police official, sent for Professor Aiford, of the Melbourne hospital, who injected ammonia into the lad's wrist, and no ill effect immediately followed from the bite. But for years Pawson lias suffered from a most pei plexing malady, which he cannot but attribute to the snake's bite. As soon as spring weather comes the palms of his hands develop a scaly eruption which looks like the under part of a snake's body, and a like trouble appears in streaks on the legs below the knees and on the feet. The very puncture in the wri.*t, where Professor Alford injected the ammonia, always shows a dark circle around it. The eruption ia very painful, and Pol ceman Dawson has difficulty in gripping his club when it is necef-saiy to have it ready in the discharge of his duty. Da won has consulted eminent physicians in this country and Australia, and has even travelled to India to see if native knowledge of venomous serpents could find u remedy for his case. He says he has spent more than he ever made in trying to get cured. His visit to the Zoo yesterday was prompted by a review in " The Sunday Press " of a magazine article by Dr. S. Weir Mitchell on snakes and their venom. He aske 1 Head Keeper Byrne to show him the snakes, and among the collection he found one that he said was of the same species as the one which bit him. The snake he picked out is called the indigo shake and comes from South America. It is about seven feet long, and being a new arrival at the Zoo, little has been learned of its habits and nature. Dawson showed , Keeper Byrne the swelling of his hands and their snake-like palms. They looked ' raw ' and inflamed, and the scaly surface was singularly like a snake's belly. — ' Philadelphia Press.'