Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 September 1899 — MON BITES NOT FELT. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

MON BITES NOT FELT.

ATTACK SEEMS TO DULL SENSE OF FEELING. Attack* of Lesser Carnivora More Painful than Those of Kina of Beasts —Experiences Belated by African Hunter* Corroborate This View. The attacks of the lesser carnivora, •mailer in proportion to man, are frequently very painful; but matters are so ordered that the bite of a dog or a ferret is usually more painful than the Injuries Inflicted by the jaws of a Hon. The Instances quoted are very numerous and striking, and properly grouped according to locality or the species of the attacl|gpg beast. In Somaliland the experiences of the bitten are supplemented by Capt. Abud, the resident at Berbera, who has had a long experience of cases, English and native, as most of the former, unless killed outright, which very seldom happens, are brought to Berbera. •> He states that “the view that no actual pain is suffered at the time seems almost universal. In most cases it would seem that there was no knowledge of the actual contact, even in the first rush of a Hon, much less of any pain experienced from tooth wounds.” This was tbe view not only of the English, but of natives. In one or- two cases where consciousness was entirely lost the person "came to” whUe the Hon was still standing over him, a period of complete anesthesia and unconsciousness having intervened. But more commonly those who have been attacked and have recovered are conscious all the time, and if they suffer at all do not feel acute pain. This may be accounted for partly by the shock given by the charge, which forms the usual preliminary to being wounded. A Hon comes at bis enemy at fuU speed, galloping low, and dashes a man standing upright to tbe ground by the full Impact of its body. Major Inverarlty states that “the claws and teeth entering the flesh do not hurt as much as you would think,” but that the squeeze given by the jaws on the bone is really painful. When knocked over, he was still keenly conscious, and felt none of the dreamy sensation experienced by Livingstone. Major Swaine, struck down by a lioness going full gallop, was unconscious

for some minutes and did not know what bad happened until he found himself standing up after the accident. “I felt no pain," he writes, “not, I believe, owing to any special interposition of Providence, but simply that the shock and loss of blood made me Incapable of feeling it. There was no pain for a few days, till it was brought on by the swelling of my arm <Jn the twelve days’ ride to the coast.” Capt. Noyes, attacked in the same district by a lion in 1895, was charged down and bitten, until the creature left him, probably when attacked by his servants. His hand was badly bitten, but he “was not conscious of any feeling of fear, or any pain whatever, probably because there was no time, but he felt exactly as if be had been bowled over in a football match, and nothing more.” A far worse accident was that which befell Lieut. Vandezee In the same year, near Beira. The Hon charged him down in the usual way and mangled bis thighs and fractured one of his arms. "During the time the attack on me by the lion was in progress,” be writes, “I felt no pain whatever, although there was a distinct feeling of being bitten—that is, I was perfectly conscious, independently of seeing the performance, that the lion was gnawing at me, but there was no pain. “I may mention that while my thighs were being gnawed I took two cartridges out of the breast pocket of my shirt and threw them to the Kaffir, tellng him to load my rifle, and immediately the lion died and rolled off on me. 1 scrambled up and-took a loaded rifle and fired at the carcass.”—London Spectator.

THE KISS—BY MAX LUBIEDZKI.