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CHAPTER XII. 



SNAKE-CHARMERS. 



In all the countries of the globe where poisonous snakes are 

 formidable to man, there are certain individuals who profess to be 

 secure from all ill-effects from the bites of these reptiles, whether 

 because they are immune to venom, or because they possess 

 secrets which enable them to cure themselves when they happen 

 to have been bitten. Not unnaturally these secrets are sometimes 

 turned to profitable account, and the possessors of them generally 

 enjoy considerable popular influence, and are very highly venerated. 

 Intimate relations with the divmities are freely attributed to them. 



Among the Romans the jugglers who carried on the profession 

 of snake-charmers and healers of snake-bites were known as Psijlli. 

 Plutarch tells us that Cato, who loved not doctors because they 

 were Greeks, attached a certam number of them to the army of 

 Libya. They were accustomed to expose their children to serpents 

 as soon as they were born, and the mothers, if they had failed in 

 conjugal fidelity, were infallibly punished by the death of their 

 offspring. If, on the contrary, the children were lawful, they had 

 nothing to f^ar from the bites of the reptiles. '' Recens etiam editos 

 serpentihus offer ehant ; si essent partus adulteri, matrum crimina 

 plectabantur interitu parvulorum ; si inidici, pivbos ortus a morte 

 paterni privilegium tuehatiw" (Solinus). 



The Libyian Psylli of antiquity still have their representatives 

 in Tunis and in Egypt. Clot Bey writes as follows with 

 reference to the Egyptian Psylli : — 



" The OpJiiogeni, or Snake-charmers, have been renowned from 



