Then he privily took a
dose of active poison, imagining that it would not fail to kill either
himself, or the devil that possessed him, or both together. Another
mistake; for if Roderick had not yet been destroyed by his own
poisoned heart, nor the snake by gnawing it, they had little to fear
from arsenic or corrosive sublimate. Indeed, the venomous pest
appeared to operate as an antidote against all other poisons. The
physicians tried to suffocate the fiend with tobacco-smoke. He
breathed it as freely as if it were his native atmosphere. Again, they
drugged their patient with opium, and drenched him with intoxicating
liquors, hoping that the snake might thus be reduced to stupor, and
perhaps be ejected from the stomach. They succeeded in rendering
Roderick insensible; but, placing their hands upon his breast, they
were inexpressibly horror-stricken to feel the monster wriggling,
twining, and darting to and fro, within his narrow limits, evidently
enlivened by the opium or alcohol, and incited to unusual feats of
activity.
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