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Thus , at the height of the Orphan School controversy , he wrote
an interesting paper "On Snake Bites" wh ich was read before the Me dical
Society of Victoria on February 21, 1859, and published in the Apri l, 1859 ,
number of the Aus tralian Medical Journal .
Hall's sheer, delight in ancl
enthusiasm for his subject were apparent in every word and made fascinating
reading .
Explaining his motive , he wrote,
Venemous snakes are very numerous in Tasmania, and I understand
are even more so qn the Australian continent . Cases of their
bites do not, however, come so frequently under the care of
medical practitioners, as to give any single individual very
extensive experience in the treatment . I am in hopes ,
therefore , that the di scussion of the subj ect by the members
of the Society wi ll elicit an aggregate amount of personal
experience that will be of great scientifi c interest , and
much practical value .
In fact , Hall's interest in snakes was a long-standing one :
A fine retriever dog I brought out with me from England, became
a most inveterate snake-hunter, and enab led me to slay great
numbers of them . In 1848, I made a collection for the Museum
at Chatham . The repti les were brought to me alive , that I
might destroy them scientifically, and without injuring them
as specimens . The men who caught them for me would pin them
to the ground with forked and pointed sticks , and then tie them
to the stick . I put them to death with a poison as potent as
their own , the oi l of tobacco . This I procured by moistening
a sharp -pointed splinter of pine with saliva, and then rubbing
it in the inside of the stem of a well-used tobacco pipe .
The snake , touched with this anywhere within the mouth , would
speedily become convulsed, and writhe in a species of tetanic
spasms , and in a few moments expire . Snakes upwards of five
feet long were so destroyed.
His paper comprised a detai led case history of George Herwood,
an itinerant watchmaker , who died in the General Hospital at Hobarton
four days after being bitten by a diamond snake, together with a summary
of previous cases of snake bite whi ch had come to his notice during twenty
years ' residence in country areas .
After di scus sing forms of treatment
us ed, - "Underwood1 s Antidote for snake bites , liquor ammoniae , Ipecacuan
Poultice and the like - Hall warned the Public not to rely on mere
external antidotes or reputed specifics , but to app ly a ligature above
the wound , excise the injured flesh , caut erize by rubbing gunpowder over
it and firing it , and seek medical as sistance immediat ely.
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He concluded
with seven important questions to which he suggested future experimenters
might provide the answers .
These, together with the case histories and
some anecdotal material, revealed the state in 1859 of this branch of
medical science .
Aware of the many puzzling gaps existing in the
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