240 . VENOMS 



this immunity to be transmitted in certain cases by heredity, ^and 

 thus we can understand how the profession of snake-charmer was 

 hereditary in certain native famiHes in India or Egypt. 



With reference to this subject, Professor Landouzy, in his fine 

 work on serum therapeutics, quotes a passage from " The Pharsaha " 

 of Lucan describing, in the year 60 a.d., the customs of the Psylh, 

 a people encountered by the army of Cato during its sojourn in 

 Africa. This passage is so interesting that I cannot refrain from 

 reproducing it : — 



" Alone unharmed of all who till the eavtli 

 ]iy deadly serpents, dwells the Psyllian race. 

 Potent as herbs then- song ; safe is their blood, 

 Nor gives admission to the poison germ 

 E'en when the chant has ceased. Their home itself 

 Placed in such venomous ti'act and serpent-thronged 

 Gained them this vantage, and a truce with death, 

 Else could they not have lived. Such is their trust 

 In purity of blood, that newly born 

 Each babe they prove by test of deadly' asp 

 For foreign lineage. So the bird of Jove 

 Turns his new fledglings to the rising sun, 

 And such as gaze upon the beams of day 

 AVith eyes unwavering, for the use of heaven 

 He rears ; but such as blink at Phtebus' rays 

 Casts from the nest. Thus of unmixed descent 

 The babe who, dreading not the serpent touch, 

 Plays in his cradle with the deadly snake.'" 



The only scientific conclusion to be drawn from the facts and 

 statements that we have just set before the reader is that, under 

 certain circumstances, man can unquestionably acquire the faculty 

 of resisting intoxication by snake-venom, by conferring" upon him- 

 self a veritable active immunity by means of repeated inoculations 

 of venom. We shall shortly see that the case is the same with 

 regard to animals. 



' " The Pharsalia of Lucan, translated into blank verse by Edward Ridley, 

 Q.C., sometime Fellow of All Souls' College, Oxford." (London : Longmans, 

 Green and Co., 1896). Book ix., p. 296, lines 1,046 to 1,065. 



