178 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



In the fourth volume of the Medical Repository^ an old journal 

 published in this city in the beginning of the present century, may be 

 found a communication from a Virginia gentleman, entitled "The 

 Chinese Snake-stone, and its Operation as an Antidote to Poison." 

 This remarkable stone, it appears, was brought from Bombay in 1740, 

 and a portion of it subsequently came into the hands of Rev. Mr. Lewis 

 Chaustien, of Frederick County, who employed it in cases of snake 

 and dog bites. The writer describes how, his little daughter having 

 been bitten by a mad dog, he was induced to carry her to Mr. Chaus- 

 tien in order to obtain for her the benefit of his remedy. Having 

 been informed that the stone, which was in three pieces, would adhere 

 to no wound except one inflicted by a serpent or a mad dog, he tried 

 the experiment of placing a piece upon two scratches on his child's 

 body occasioned by a recent fall, but it immediately dropped off. On 

 being applied, however, to the dog-bite, it at once took hold like a 

 leech, and continued to stick for eight hours ; and the other two pieces 

 adhered successively an equal length of time before they fell off. They 

 were then immersed in hot water, when, in a short time, a number of 

 small bubbles began to rise, and a scum, like oil of a greenish-yellow 

 color, soon covered the surface. The pieces were afterward dried in 

 warm ashes. Mr. Chaustien exhibited a certificate which had accom- 

 panied the stone from Bombay, and which attested its efficacy in ex- 

 tracting venom from the bites of all poisonous animals. Another 

 piece was in the possession of a Mr. Joseph Fredd, of Loudon County, 

 Ya. These wonderful stones doubtless still exist with virtues unim- 

 paired a profitable inheritance for those whose privilege it is to be- 

 stow their inestimable boon upon credulous humanity. 



One of the most ancient measures employed in the case of a dog 

 suspected of hydrophobia was, a prolonged sousing in cold water, 

 which treatment, however, was not confined to animals, but was ex- 

 tended to persons whom they had bitten. Euripides, the Greek tragic 

 poet, was said to have been thus preserved from hydrophobia. Even 

 the celebrated and sagacious physician Celsus appears to have had 

 confidence in the process, as he thus describes it : " The only remedy 

 is to cast the patient unexpectedly into a pond, and, if he has no 

 knowledge of swimming, to allow him to sink, in order that he may 

 drink, and to raise and again depress him, so that, although unwill- 

 ingly, he may be satiated with water." 



In more modern days, Van Helmont gives the following quaint 

 description of the same formidable method, as employed in his time : 

 " There is a castle situated by the sea-side, four leagues from Ghent, 

 which they call Cataracta. I saw a ship passing by it, and therein 

 an old man, naked, bound with cords, having a weight on his feet ; 

 under his armpits he was encompassed with a girdle, wherew T ith he 

 was bound to the sail-yard. I asked what they meant by that spec- 

 tacle. One of the mariners said that the old man was an hydro- 



