TRANSCRIPTION
The 12th of September had nearly been a fatal day to M. Lesueur. While he was in pursuit of a troop of monkies among the rocks which obstruct the course of the river of Coupang, a venomous reptile bit him in the heel. Soon after he felt a sort of numbness in the whole of his leg, which made him but too well guess what he had to fear from this bite. M. Leseur hastened back to the town, but before he could get there his leg was stiff and much swelled, and he could scarcely bend his knee.
To retard the action of the venom, he bound his thigh tight round above the knee, but this ligature had little effect ; the thigh itself swelled to such a degree, that it was as much as my poor friend could do to reach the house. As soon as M.Lesueur got there he laid himself down on his bed overcome by fatigue and pain, and already experiencing all the symptorris of a violent fever. I was at the time absent from the town, but our doctor, M. L'Haridon, hastened to him, and wthout delay cauterized the bite of the reptile very deeply ; and applying to the part a compress, wetted with ammoniac, he then gave a strong dose of the same drug to the sick man, recommeding him to keep perfectly still and quiet. He was soon in a profuse sweat, and the pain abated ; and in a few days M. Leseur felt no more of the wound, except a stiffness and difficulty of bending his knee, which remained a long time and which he still feels at times, particularly in the variations of the weather. What was most remarkable in this accident was the effect of the poison on the person ; such was the rapidity of its deleterious power, that on the evening of the day on which M. Lesueur was bitten, all the lower extremity corresponding with the afflected heel, became of a green colour, like flesh that was corrupted. What could have been the nature and properties of these particles of virus, to make it have such power in the aninial economy, we cannot conjecture. This accident convinced us, that the Malays had sufficient reason for their extreme fear of reptiles.
