- How settlers cured snakebite.

Snakebite was a significant problem for the pioneers and settlers as they headed into the frontier. 

Even today it's estimated that more than a million people a year are killed by snakebite around the globe.

In western countries we have antivenin so it's pretty rare for somebody to die of snakebite.  But across Africa and Asia they are still using snakebite cures not that different to the treatments the pioneers and settlers of the 1800s relied on.

The 1861 Prairie Traveler book features a handful of state of the art snakebite treatments that colonial people could use.

It was written by Capt Randolf Marcy of the US Army in 1859 as a handbook of instructions for colonists who were heading west in covered wagons.  Today it is considered to be one of the most important books ever written about the the lives of pioneers and settlers.

The book's snakebite treatments range from the obvious to the insane.  But in truth, none of them are as crazy as they seem.

Use Alcohol:  "It must be taken until the patient becomes very much intoxicated, and this requires a large quantity, as the action of the poison seems to counteract its effects". 

In short, get the victim as blazingly drunk as you can.

This is a movie classic of course.  But even today alcohol and snakebite go together like rum and coke.  A large proportion of the present-day snakebite victims that arrive at US hospitals are drunk.  And male.  And young.  And usually bitten on the hand or fingers while trying to pick up the snake or kill it.

Use Plantain and Tobacco: "placing the wounded finger in her mouth, (she) sucked the poison from the puncture for some minutes, repeatedly spitting out the saliva; after which she chewed and mashed some plantain leaves and applied to the wound.  Over this she sprinkled some finely-powdered tobacco, and wrapped the finger up in a rag".

For the Native Americans and settlers plantain had more medicinal functions than can ever be listed.  In some Native American languages its name meant "Life Medicine" and it was used for almost everything.  Its use in snakebite treatment was so well known to the pioneers and settlers that plantain was commonly known as "snakeweed".  These days we know that plantain is full of a chemical called Aucubin, which is a powerful anti-toxin.

Tobacco has been used as a kind of poultice for stings but a more common use is as a coagulant on wounds.  It stops bleeding fast and that's probably how it is being used in the plantain/tobacco  snakebite treatment.

Use Hartshorn: "Hartshorn applied externally to the wound, and drunk in small quantities diluted with water whenever the patient becomes faint or exhausted from the effects of the poison".

Hartshorn or "hart's horn" are the horns of the male red deer.  Shavings of the horns could be made into oil of hartshorn, salt of hartshorn and spirit of hartshorn, all of which feature ammonia as the active ingredient.

True hartshorn was replaced by other compounds of ammonia that didn't require the rare horns of a red deer stag.  The pioneers and settlers of the 1800s almost certainly would have been carrying hartshorn salt with them, or baker's ammonia.  It was the baking powder of the day and is probably the version of hartshorn being recommended in this snakebite cure. It can still be purchased as  a baking ingredient.

Use a Turtle: "The blood of the turtle was much cried up, which, on account of this extraordinary virtue, the inhabitants dry in the form of small scales or membranes, and carry about them when they travel in this country... Whenever any one is wounded by a serpent, he takes a couple of pinches of the dried blood internally, and applies a little of it to the wound".

Not much to be said really.  You can buy a bottle of turtle blood at any Walmart store in China.  Where 1.3 billion people consider turtle blood to be second only to deer penis for its health giving properties.  This particular snakebite cure comes from Africa and it's almost certain that there's somebody in Africa using this remedy as you read this.

Use lots of Chickens: "An incision having been made in the breast of a living fowl, the bitten part is applied to the wound.  If the poison be very deadly, the bird soon evinces symptoms of distress, becomes drowsy, droops its head, and dies.  It is replaced by a second, a third, and more if requisite.  When, however, the bird no longer exhibits any of the signs just mentioned, the patient is considered to be out of danger.  A frog similarly applied is supposed to be equally efficacious".

It makes you wonder how many people passed away staring at chicken #3 strapped to their thigh.

What's mind-blowing is that modern science shows that this remedy would appear to work most of the time.  Indeed, all of these snakebite remedies would seem to work most of the time.

The people who recommended and used these treatments were not fools. They were as smart as us.  And they were as interested in evidence-based outcomes as we are. 

What they didn't know is that venomous snakes are careful with their venom.  Making venom is too physiologically expensive to squander it in every bite.  So snakes use it sparingly.

Most bites from venomous snakes don't involve venom.

When they do use venom, most of the time it's less than a lethal dose.

Most snakebites aren't from venomous snakes. 

And a good number of venomous snakes aren't actually deadly.

Which means that most of the snakebite victims who have used the Boer three-chicken-cure for snakebite have probably survived.  [Providing they didn't get some kind of sepsis from mating their open wound with a chicken's.]

To the pioneers and settlers, these treatments appeared to work.  They were valid and validated.

The point of this blog post isn't to reveal crazy and quaint approaches to snakebite treatment.  The point is that even the crazy and quaint actually make some kind of sense in the light of what was known at the time.  Context matters.

You can visit the Pioneer Handbooks library for a collection of free downloadable how-to and DIY from the settlers and pioneers.

These snake bite cures and more can be found in the Prairie Traveler chapter on pack mules.

If you think the pioneer and settler ways of doing things are worth remembering, then use the buttons below to like us on Facebook and send these historic snakebite cures on a trip around the globe.

[Safety notes:  Leave snakes alone and they'll leave you alone.  Don't even bother trying to kill them, just walk away.  If you get bitten go to a hospital.  If you are serious about the outdoors, learn first aid for your locality as different types of snakebite require different first aid treatments.]