Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 September 1890 — REMEDY FOR DOG BITES. [ARTICLE]

REMEDY FOR DOG BITES.

It Consists Simply of a Solution of Salt and Vinegar. “A Woman” writes from New Rochelle to the New York Tribune. I should.like to say a few words on the subject of dogs and dog bites. lam a lover of animals, especially of dogs. There are six dogs lying around my feet while I write. Three belong to a neighbor, three are mine. Two of them I took off the street, “old and sick.” six years ago. In their day they had been valuable setters. I have been bjtten by dogs repeatedly, once severely. A pet dog of a neighbor’s was very sick, and I was attempting to relieve it. It bit me in the left thumb, just below the nail. That member became black :.s-iar-down as the wrist. It remained so • until the nail came off. The owner talked of hydrophobia and said that the dog had not tasted water for two weeks. Had I been afraid I should, no doubt, have taken nervous fits and died. The verdict would have been hydrophobia. But I simply applied a solution of salt and vinegar—a little more vinegar , than salt—washed the wound with it, tied a clean rag around the thumb, keeping it saturated well with the solution, and moved the rag so that a fresh part covered the wound, at intervals. This remedy was once applied to my wrist by a colored woman in the south for a snake-bite. My arm was then black, hard, and painful. The remedy acted like a charm. In two hours the discoloration had disappeared, and with it the pain, and only the needle mark where the fang had entered was visible. Again, I was bitten by a weasel in the Grand Central depot. A girl had it in a bag and had placed it on a seat next to mine, remarking that it was. a kitten. I placed my hand on it. Quicker than thought a couple of teeth punctured the joint of my left forefinger to the bone. I compelled the girl to tell me what was in the bag. My finger was badly swollen and painful before I reached home, some hours after. I used the same simple remedy with the same speedy result. I have also applied it successfully in other cases.