Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 146, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 June 1918 — Deaths From Rattlesnake Bites Are Very Rare in United States [ARTICLE]

Deaths From Rattlesnake Bites Are Very Rare in United States

By ALFRED WESTFALL

Colorado Agricultural College, Fort Collins

Of the poisonous snakes-’inhabiting the United States, the rattlesnake is perhaps the deadliest and undoubtedly the best known. There are a number of Varieties of this reptile. Although rattlesnakes are found in all sections of the country, the majority of them are in the arid and semiarid regions of the Southwest. The most common kind in Colorado is the prairie rattlesnake. Practically all people enjoying the outdoors are more or less afraid of getting bitten by a rattlesnake. And yet considering the number of these reptiles, the number of casualties is very small. In fact, death from snake bite is extremely rare. There is no between losses in this country and those in India, where official figures report 22,000 deaths annually. This difference is no doubt largely due to the fact that here a large portion of the population does not evince a general inclination to go bare-legged through stretches of serpent-infested territory. Adults bitten by the smaller varieties of snakes have frequently recovered without medical assistance. In recent years the majority of recorded fatalities from rattlesnake bite have resulted from careless handling of captive specimens