Two Instances I Know Of, In Which The Patient Recovered.
The
first was an Irish labourer, who whilst reaping took up a snake, which bit
him in the finger.
He walked at once to the fence, put his hand on a post,
and severed the wounded member with his sickle. Irishman-like, he forgot
to move the sound fingers out of the way, and two of them shared the fate
of their injured companion. Paddy walked into the nearest township, had
his wounds dressed, and felt no inconvenience from the venom. Under the
soubriquet of "Three-fingered Tim," this individual may frequently be met
with at Sydney, and, for a glass of grog, will be delighted to recount the
whole affair, with the richest of Milesian brogues. The second case was
that of a woman. She was going from the hut to the fireplace, when she
trod on a snake, which bit her just below the joint of the little toe; for,
like Coleridge's Christabel -
"Her blue-veined feet unsandall'd were."
She was in a terrible position; her husband, and the other man for whom she
acted as hut-keeper, had both gone out with their flocks some hours
previously, and there was nobody about but a poor half-witted lad, who hung
about the place doing odd jobs. She was a resolute woman, and made up her
mind how to act, in far less time than it takes me to set it down on paper.
Coo-ehing for the lad, she went into the hut, and came out again with a
sharp tomahawk and an axe.
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