A letter to James [sic. i.e.! Robert] Jameson / [Charles Waterton].

  • Waterton, Charles, 1782-1865
Date:
1835
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter to James [sic. i.e.! Robert] Jameson / [Charles Waterton]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and got his death also by a scratch, did you not wonder from whence the poison came ?* However, Sir, to cut the matter short, and in order that I may not run the risk of annoying you by too many questions, I beg to assure you, that the story of this depopulating Munchausen hoot, which you have swallowed without straining, was current when I was a hoy. With the exception of a few interpolations by Audubon, this very same story (which he had the effrontery to tell you all in Edin- bro’, was well authenticated, and “ took place in a “ central district of the State of Pennsvlvania, some “ twelve or fifteen years ago,”) was considered a good joke, some fifty or sixty years hack. The late Professor Barton, of the University of Pennsylvania, investigated it at the period of his publishing his pamphlets on the rattlesnake ; and it turned out to he, AN ARRANT YANKEE - DOODLE HOAX. I have done, Sir, for the present, though I have a scourge of fearful asperity, ready for other parts of * Here we have two men and a dog poisoned by scratches. I chal¬ lenge the whole world to produce one solitary instance of any animal being poisoned by the scratch of a rattlesnake’s fang, or any other poisonous snake’s fang. The formation of the fang itself shews beyond all doubt whatever, that this cannot possibly he the case. The wound is always a puncture, as though it had been done by the point of a pin.