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Show ARE BLUE GUMS VENOMOUS? A Texas Ioctor Experimenting With' the Virus Froui'a Negro's Sleuth. It has long been a belief among the negroes that the bite of one of their race who has blue gums is about as deadly as the bite of a mad dog or rattlesnake. rat-tlesnake. Few white people think this is anything more than mere superstition, supersti-tion, and while instances are recorded in the newspapers every once in awhile of deaths resulting from bites inflicted by blue gnm negroes the general opin ion is that the death was not caused by the bite, or else that the blood of the person bitten was in such condition that a wound of almost any character equally equal-ly severe would have produced death. It is pot questioned, however, that tho bite of a human being whether the blue gum variety or not-may in some instances prove a severe injury. A case is reported irom the iott &tore neighborhood. A negro woman Ellen Toney about 50 years of age, was bitten bit-ten about a week ago by her daughter-in-law. The wound was on the little finger and was not at all dangerous in appearance, but in a day or two the hand began to swell and the swelling was accompanied by great pain. Itsoon spread to the entire arm, which puffed up to twice its normal size, A physician physi-cian was called in, and he prescribed such remedies as the case seemed to demand, de-mand, but lockjaw set in and lasted about 20 hours. Finally the swelling began to abate, and the old woman is now considered on a fair road to recovery. recov-ery. The doctor learned that the daughter-in-law was of the blue gum variety and examined her mouth to see if it differed from that of anybody else. He says the gums are of a purplish blue mottled appearance, unlike those of the ordinary ordina-ry negro. Ho is skeptical on the subject of the bite of such a person being more poisonous than that of any one else, but says ho is experimenting with tho virus or saliva from this woman's moith to see if there is any truth in the belief of the negroes. The subject of his experiment experi-ment is a small dog, which he innocu-latcd innocu-latcd with the virus, and he says he is waiting for developments with some degree de-gree of interest. Benham Cor. Galveston Galves-ton News. |