lOG ON THE PHYSIOGNOMY OF SERPENTS. 



ly in its southern parts : at this day, the practice of in- 

 cluding the snake in the composition of this medicament is 

 only retained in Italy, where the theriac is still made in 

 various places. In Sicily it is prepared at Palermo. 

 That of Venice is very celebrated : there they use millions 

 of the Vipera aspis, -vvhich is common in the vicinity of 

 that city.* The great manufacture of theriac which exists 

 at Naples, under the protection of the government, is a 

 private speculation, at the head of which stands the learn- 

 ed Professor Delle Chiaje; there they use indiscrimi- 

 nately every species of serpent, although they prefer the 

 vipers named viperiere by the peasants, who bring them 

 alive in baskets. M. Siebold assures me that they 

 frequently employ a species of theriac in China and 

 Japan ; the inhabitants of the Lioukiou Isles extract 

 medicaments from the Hydrophis colubrina ; and at the 

 Isle of Banka, the Chinese reckon the bile of the Great 

 Python a precious remedy against many diseases. t I pass 

 over the use made in the middle ages of different parts 

 of the snake, to each of which was attributed salutary 

 qualities ; in our days they are wholly laid aside. 



It is only in recent times that those experiments have 

 been instituted on the effects of the bites of snakes, which 

 we have related elsewhere : the ancients, as many people 

 still do, reputed indiscriminately all serpents venomous ; 

 they placed the seat of their deadly weapon in the tongue, 

 or m the end of the tail, and ascribed to the bite of each 

 species, according to their fancy, a different train of mis- 

 chiefs. J Civilization is unable to destroy these errors, 

 and one is astonished to hear them repeated by well-in- 

 formed persons ; to see republished in several works the 

 story of the three sons of a colonist, successively dying 

 at long intervals, of a wound caused by the fang of a 

 rattlesnake remaining in the boot of their father, who 

 had first died of the bite : a story which the inhabitants 

 of Surinam, as well as those of the United States, are 



* IMS. note communicated by the late Dr Michahelles. 



t Olivier, Lund en Zeetogten, ii. p. 447- 



J See LucA.v, Pharsalia, ix. 937 ; Nicander, de heriaca. 



