REPTILES AND SNAKE-STONES. 13 



While in Corfu, where I resided some years, I became slightly 

 acquainted with the gentleman in question, Signor Ventura, of 

 the Strada Reale, Corfu. His family is, as stated, of great anti- 

 quity in the island. He does not know exactly when the stone 

 first came into their possession, but conjectures it was brought 

 from India by one of his ancestors I have myself never seen 

 this remarkable stone, but am fully satisfied as to its efficacy, as 

 I have constantly heird of people being cured by it; in fact, 

 the first thing the Greeks do when bitten by a venomous snake, 

 of which there are several species in Greece, is to apply to 

 Signor Ventura. The stone is then applied, exactly in the 

 manner described above, and the patient in due time is cured. 



The instance alluded to where one died while it was being 

 used for another, is of a countryman who was bitten by the 

 viper while catting myrtle or bay for church decoration. He, as 

 soon as bitten, ran to the town, distant some miles, and arrived 

 when the stone was in use. When it was procured for him, it 

 would not adhere ; for it seems this singular stone requires to 

 rest in milk for some time, to vomit, as it were, the poison 

 absorbed. Before it was fit for use again the man died. The 

 stone was broken by a very clever but unscrupulous native 

 physician, who procured it to look at it, as he said, but who 

 broke it in halves, and subjected one half to the most severe 

 tests, totally failing, however, to discover its component parts. 

 The fracture of the stone has slightly impaired its curative 

 poorer, and, in consequence, I have heard the physician, Dottore 

 , railed at in no very measured language by the Greeks. 



Sir Emerson Tennent gives an account of the 

 Pamboo Kaloo of Ceylon, which is employed for the 

 same purposes as the above, and the knowledge of 

 such a use he thinks was probably communicated to 

 the Singhalese by the itinerant snake-charmers of 

 the Coromandel coast. " On one occasion," he writes, 

 "in March, 1854, a friend of mine was riding with 

 some other civil officers of the Government along a 



