Roddy Maclean looks at traditional native treatments for adder bite as described by Norman Morrison of Shawbost in this seminal 1924 publication ‘The Life-Story of the Adder’.
Leugh ann an Gàidhlig / Read in Gaelic
In an earlier blog I looked in general terms at ‘The Life-Story of the Adder’ written by Gaelic-speaking Lewisman, Norman Morrison, and published in 1924. This time I would like to tell you of the native cures for snakebite as reported by Morrison who was in his day the greatest authority on the biology of this iconic reptile.
In the book, which is a cyclopaedia of the adder, Tormod an t-Seòladair (to give him the name by which he was known in his native Shawbost) describes in detail the species’ internal organs, including the ‘poison apparatus’ which works on the ‘same principle as the hypodermic syringe’, with the poison glands situated behind the eyes. The fangs consist of two slender, sharp-pointed teeth, with a ‘pair of reserve fangs, ready for immediate use in case of accident to the other two…’ The author also disabuses us of any notion that a coiled snake cannot inflict a bite – indeed it can, uncoiling itself instantly and throwing itself forwards about three-quarters of its own length. The venom, he adds helpfully, is practically colourless.
When he wrote the book, Norman Morrison had been handling adders for over twenty years and had never been bitten, although he was not blasé about the risk. He also pointed out that, at that stage, there was no scientific remedy for an adder bite, although antivenoms for other species had been developed elsewhere. His first aid for a bite belonged to its time and is largely discredited today. It included applying a tourniquet, cutting and sucking the wound, and applying potassium permanganate or cauterizing the wound with a ‘red-hot wire, such as a knitting needle’. His treatment for livestock that have suffered adder bite is similar to the above, with the addition of forcing a glass of hot milk ‘well seasoned with brandy or whisky’ down the throat of the animal at intervals of two hours for the first six hours. Who knows how effective that was!
Ten years after the appearance of ‘The Life of the Adder’, Morrison suffered an adder bite, which he describes in his later book ‘My Story’ (Inverness, 1937). He had five captive snakes from which he was extracting poison twice a week and, while engaged in this (an activity that he admitted was ‘irritating’ to the snakes), one of his charges plunged its fangs into the palm of his right hand, near the base of the thumb. He immediately applied his recommended first aid (he had potassium permanganate crystals close by) and although his hand and arm became swollen to the elbow and he suffered considerable pain, the effect lasted for only a few days.
Although viewing his subject through the eyes of a scientist, Morrison, a Gael with a strong interest in the lore and ways of his people, could not resist relating ancient Highland remedies for adder bite. The first mentioned (which the author tells us was the most common folk remedy used in his day) appears slightly bizarre. Simply, a black cockerel, split open in front, was laid on the wound. In a second treatment a clach-nathrach ‘serpent stone’ was used as a medicinal charm. Norman describes this as a ‘flat, smooth, circular stone, about three inches in diameter, with a hole in the centre. It was believed that the hole was made in some miraculous manner by a serpent, and that ever afterwards the stone contained a virtue which would counteract the action of the poison. By laying the stone flat on the affected part, it was said that the inflammation subsided, and the patient made a speedy recovery.’ Morrison further points out that such stones were found in remote glens and streams and were extremely rare.
The third remedy is fascinating from a Gaelic perspective as there is an old saying that an adder will never pass through the foliage of an ash tree. Morrison informs us that a solution made from ash bark can be used as a treatment for adder bite. He also writes that he was told himself that ‘no adder is ever found near an ash tree’, an observation which his own extensive experience could not contradict. And he mentions a fourth remedy which was to rub the head of a dead adder on the wound. It was common practice in the Highlands to cut the head off an adder that had been killed and to preserve it in salt in case it should ever be required for curing a bite.
One other fascinating Gaelic interpretation of the interaction between human and snake involved ‘a certain form of inflammation of the face which was supposed to be due to gaoth na nathrach – ‘the serpent’s breath’. This referred to a belief, which Norman heard when a child on more than one occasion, that if one were near an adder, in the lee of the creature, its breath was so venomous that it could poison the human’s blood.
However, in a series of laboratory experiments with various prey species, Morrison found that, while mammals and lizards (and even marine fish) succumbed relatively quickly to the snake’s venom, frogs and toads appeared to be immune, and neither could an adder poison another adder.
In a series of experiments, he subjected three different frogs to the fangs of three different snakes. He describes how the adders bit the frogs so viciously that they had difficulty in withdrawing their fangs from the prey. Despite that, the frogs continued as if nothing had happened. In order to be sure that the venom, and its delivery mechanism, were not faulty, the experimenter introduced a large brown rat which was promptly bitten and died a ‘horrible death’ a little over an hour later. Then, to be certain that cold-blooded creatures did not have a general immunity to adder venom, he made a lizard the victim of an adder bite; the prey was deceased within twelve minutes. Norman proposed that frog blood contains a powerful antitoxin and that this might provide an opportunity to create an antivenomous serum.
Morrison was fascinated by the ability of an adder to swallow a prey which is of much greater diameter than its own throat, owing to its ability to expand both its mouth and digestive organs. On one occasion he found a full-sized, largely undigested rat in the stomach of an average-sized adder. The author reckoned it would have taken the snake up to six weeks to fully digest its meal.
Morrison makes comments on the species’ habit of hibernating in the winter. They generally retire into ‘holes in turf dykes and into cavities in the trunks of old trees, beneath masses of decayed vegetation, and into slits or openings in rocks.’ He also points out how they will often hibernate in groups ‘entwined in each other’s coils like a ball’ in order to keep their temperature above that of the surroundings. Although they are ‘cold-blooded’, they are still sensitive to extreme cold. ‘The Life-Story of the Adder’ is a century old, but there is much that can be gleaned from its pages which can still inform and interest a modern audience.
This blog was written by Inverness-based writer, broadcaster and storyteller Roddy (Ruairidh) Maclean, whose work highlights the connections between the Gaelic language and Scotland’s environment.
NatureScot, Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (ARC) and the Amphibian & Reptile Groups of the UK (ARGUK) are currently appealing to farmers, landowners, crofters, rangers, and land managers to take part in the online Scottish Adder Survey to help shed more light on the distribution and conservation status of adders in Scotland today. The survey will take about 10 minutes, is completely anonymous, and closes on 31st March 2024. For more information see: https://www.nature.scot/farmers-and-land-managers-urged-share-adder-sightings.
Scotland's Nature 
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