History Knox
Mark Sebastian Jordan authors a column each Saturday reflecting on the community's history.
MOUNT VERNON — One thing that has changed since the early days of Knox County is the likelihood of being bitten by a rattlesnake.
In the early days of the county, the venomous snakes were widespread in the hilly eastern section, which offered ideal landscape, replete with many nooks, crannies, and caves suitable for rattlers. As the land became developed, many snakes were eliminated.
I don’t have any statistics, but I haven’t heard about recent rattlesnake encounters in these parts, though the creatures certainly still exist in the Appalachian foothills of southeast Ohio, and other points further south.
Such a dangerous threat resulted in an interesting notice in the very first newspaper ever published in Knox County, the short-lived Ohio Register, which published some advice to readers on May 8, 1816, according to a recollection recorded in A. Banning Norton’s 1862 history of Knox County.
According to the newspaper, an efficacious remedy for rattlesnake bites was the “kali preparation.”
I had to hunt this one down.
As far as I can figure, it refers to an Asian Indian traditional remedy for snakebite, which involves making pills out of a mixture of ground peppercorns and butter.
Some references I found online simply talked of these pills being swallowed as the treatment — which surely wouldn’t stand much hope of helping—but the Register suggests more, even though it gives no recipe for the pills.
The paper says to apply the kali treatment directly to the wound, then to take a lump of the mixture “the size of a hazelnut,” and to drop it in vinegar to dissolve it. Then, as the vinegar fizzes, swallow the mixture.
This is to be repeated “every 25 to 30 minutes” as long as pain continues. I guess it’s implied that you can stop treatment if the patient dies.
Swallowing a hazelnut sized lump of ground pepper and butter fizzing in vinegar strikes me as a good way to provoke immediate upchucking. Maybe this remedy works (as much as it does) by removing some of the venom from the patient by violently vomiting.
At least I can see that the pepper applied directly to the wound would cause irritation, which would draw a little bit of the venom out as the patient bled. And the ingestion of the pepper pills would certainly cause a spike in circulation, though that isn’t necessarily a good thing, as it would speed up the circulation of the venom.
To be sure, this was a poor treatment at best, and is certainly inferior to modern anti- venom medical treatments. Other online references indicated that this basic mixture was often, in India at least, fortified with ground or chewed leaves of various locally popular herbs, so perhaps some local variants of the kali treatment were more effective, based on the availability of powerful herbs.
I’ll stay in modern times, thank you.
Granted, today your snakebite medical bills will force you to launch a Go Fund Me crusade on Facebook, but it’s still probably better than slapping pepper and butter on the wound while chugging vinegar.