Word: snaking
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...That snake bite poisoning can be counteracted by a horse serum was discovered 25 years ago by Dr. Albert Calmette of the Paris Pasteur Institute. He injected first small doses of cobra venom, then increasingly larger doses into a horse, progressively the horse's blood developed proper antibodies. That horse's serum cured cobra bites-if used promptly, for cobra venom kills very quickly...
...Amaral's work developing serums against U. S. snake bites was relatively easy. He had the technique of production. There remained to make a survey of noxious U. S. reptiles. He found only 19 kinds of them. Thirteen belonged to the rattler (Crotalus) family. Others were massasauga and pigmy rattler (Sistrurus family), copperhead and cottonmouth moccasin (Agkistrodon family), coral and harlequin (Micrurus family). Harlequins and corals are rare, appearing only in the south. Moccasins and copperheads frequent the southeastern and eastern states...
Identifying poisonous snakes is easy. Most of them belong to the pit-viper family. They have a deep depression between eye and nostril. Heads are flat and triangular, necks thin, bodies stout, tails short, eyes with elliptical pupils like a cat's. Fangs fold back against the roof of the mouth. A single row of scales runs along the belly. The biggest U. S. snake is the eastern diamond-back rattler, which grows to nine feet...
...Amaral, first at Manhattan and then at Mulford's in Philadelphia, last week repeated his standardized method of dealing with snake bites...
...Catch the snake that did the biting. To identify it is to know what serum to use. Polyvalent serums are made, good against rattler, moccasin or copperhead bites. For other snakes specific anti-venoms must be used...