12 OUR REPTILES. 



as medicine, but even when merely carried about 

 the person, so that credulous people would hire 

 them on particular occasions for a ducat per day. 

 A single Oriental Bezoar has been known to sell for 

 six thousand livres. The goat Bezoar was found in 

 the fourth stomach of the Gaprcc agagrus of Persia, 

 and was said to be oblong, of the size of a kidney- 

 bean, shining, and of a dark green colour. This 

 was doubtless the most esteemed as a snake-stone. 



An account, recently published, of one of these 

 snake-stones, which has great reputation in the 

 island of Corfu, thus describes the manner in which 

 it is employed : — * 



When a person is bitten by a poisDnous snake, the bite must 

 be opened by a cut of a lancet or razor longways, and the stone 

 applied within twenty-four hours. The stone then attaches 

 itself firmly on the wound, and when it has done its office falls 

 off ; the cure is then complete. The stone must then be thrown 

 into milk ; whereupon it vomits the poison it has absorbed, 

 which remains green upon the top of the milk, and the stone is 

 then again fit for use. This stone has been from time imme- 

 morial in the family of Ventura, of Corfu, a house of Italian 

 origin, and is notorious, so that peasants immediately apply for 

 its aid. In a case where two were stung at the same time by 

 serpents, the stone was applied to one, who recovered, but the 

 other, for whom it could not be used, died. It never failed but 

 once, and then it was applied after the twenty-four hours. Its 

 colour is so dark as not to be distinguished from black. 



In confirmation of the above, another writer 

 adds : — t 



* P. M. Colquhoan, in All the Year Rouni, No. 139. 

 t A. M. Browne, in Science Gossip, Vol. i., p. 38. 



