lad to place his thumb at the end of the gun barrel and he
pulled the trigger, blowing it off.’ Violent but apparently
effective, as young Pearce went on to make a full
recovery. 66
Some of the treatments that snake bite victims were
exposed to beggar belief, and one example included just
about every conceivable strange practice. It is so
extraordinary that it is worth quoting at length. A 14-year
-old boy named Hines was bitten by a ‘red snake’ (most
likely a copperhead as bronze/copper-coloured specimens
are common in the Hobart region) at Glen Leith near
Hobart in 1868. The doctor who began treating the boy
three hours after the bite stated he had ‘stopped
Above: early newspapers are full of accounts of bites and
near misses when snakes concealed in the crop decamped
from this type of apparatus, falling onto the workers
underneath. Image courtesy of QVMAG Launceston (Reg.
No. 1983, p.0514).
Right: 'snooks' of grain waiting to be loaded into wagons
by hand in the early 20 th century. The fields were cut with
scythes, the crop tied into snooks and placed in piles.
Rodents and snakes were common in these habitats and
many bites ensued. Image courtesy of QVMAG
Launceston (Reg. No. 1993, p.1394).