NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 225 



to the beautiful wife of Sir Kenelm Digby were fed upon 

 vipers. 



A word or two upon tbe poison and its nature, and I 

 have done. Dr. Mead observes that the venomous juice 

 itself is of so inconsiderable a quantity, that it is no 

 more than one good drop that does the execution. How 

 it operates does not seem to be quite satisfactorily 

 made out. 



Ray relates that a gentleman resident in India having 

 friends at his house, sent for one of those natives who 

 carry about serpents to show experiments upon the dif- 

 ference of their poisons. The first serpent which the 

 exhibitor produced was of a very large size, which he 

 affirmed to be quite harmless ; and to prove his asser- 

 tion, he made a ligature upon his arm and provoked the 

 serpent to bite him. Having collected the blood which 

 flowed from the bite to the quantity of half a spoonful, 

 he spread it upon his thigh. He then produced a smaller 

 one, which was a cobra de capello, and gave a terrible 

 account of the effects of its poison. In support of his 

 assertion, he, holding the neck of the serpent very tight, 

 pressed out of the vesicle of the jaws about half a drop 

 of its contents, and put it upon the coagulated blood on 

 his thio;h. A great ebullition and effervescence imme- 

 diately ensued, in the manner of a fermentation, and the 

 blood was changed into a yellow fluid, confirmmg the ob- 

 servation, that the bite of a viper produces the jaundice. 



The experiment made by Dr. Mead, however, gave a 

 very different result : — 



About half an ounce of human blood received into a warm glass, 

 in which were five or six grains of the viperine poison newly ejected, 

 was not visibly altered either in colour or consistence. It then 

 was and remained undistinguishable from the same blood, taken 

 into another glass, in which was no poison at all. 



The Doctor gives the following account of the micro- 

 scopic appearances presented by the poison : — 



l3 



