538 SNAKES. 



A long list might be written. It is noteworthy, too, that the 

 natives of the countries in which these plants are variously 

 found, have strong faith in them, and indeed use them with 

 more or less of success. The early writers on America 

 entertained no sort of doubt as to the efficacy of the plants 

 or preparations used by the Indians. Purchas, in 1626, after 

 describing the * Ibiracua, which causeth by his biting the 

 Bloud to issue thorow all Parts of the Bodie, Eyes, Mouth, 

 Nose, Eares,' etc., says: 'But the Indians are acquainted 

 with a certaine Herbe that will heal their Woundes.' 

 Lawson, Berkeley, and Catesby tell us the Indians were never 

 without a remedy, which they carried about with them, but 

 the preparation of which differed in each tribe. Border 

 Americans of the present day, also, are never at a loss when 

 snake-bitten, though the most popular of modern remedies 

 is whisky. (Not that this offers any exception to the rule, 

 that poison kills poison ; the comic philosophy being that 

 whisky, as the stronger poison of the two, ' goes in for first 

 innings, so to speak.') 



Some of the poisonous antidotal plants in South America 

 are used in the preparation of the celebrated wotirali or 

 ctirare, with which the Indians poison their arrows. Snake- 

 venom and pounded fangs are also constituents of this, 

 which is why the effect in the blood — as has been shown in 

 experiments — is similar to that of snake-bite. Some of the 

 tribes are said to acquire immunity from the most virulent 

 snakes by swallowing the potent herbs of their region. 

 Inoculation with deadly vegetable juices is another of their 

 remedies ; and Tschudi informs us that after this inocu- 

 lation, snake-bites are harmless for some time, but that the 



