On 7/17/03 7:36 AM, "Hoover, Jan J ERDC-EL-MS" <HOOVERJ_at_wes.army.mil> wrote:
> Just read an old paper and thought it might be of interest to some list
> subscribers with an interest in snakes.
>
> Dr. George Eugene Beyer, a German zoologist and museum curator at
> Tulane, was the first resident herpetologist in Louisiana. In 1898, he
> wrote an article on the live specimens he kept and cared for. It says
> almost as much about him as it does snake biology.
>
> After his captive cottonmouth gave birth, Dr. Beyer was curious about
> how venomous the babies were. He wrote, "To test their poisonous
> qualities, I permitted one of them to bite me...but outside of the
> peculiar penetrating sensation attendant upon all venomous snake bites,
> and not unlike a bee sting, I did not feel other results." He was not
> so fortunate a year later.
>
> Eight days after the birth of some rattlesnakes, he tested their
> toxicity. "I picked one of them up, teased it a little, and presented
> the first joint of the little finger of my right hand for a bite. The
> little snake bit with a vengeance...." During the next 36-hours, Dr.
> Beyer experienced "lightning-like pain...up to the
> shoulder...edema...subjective vertigo...dyspnoea [labored or painful
> breathing]...swelling [of the arm, side of body, and face]...[a fever of]
> 103 degrees..." but reported that "No remedy had been applied from
> beginning to end."
>
> Naturalists were a hardy breed then.
>
> Reference:
> Beyer, G.E. 1898. Observations on the life histories of certain
> snakes. Am. Nat. 32: 17-24.
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