298 THE SNAKE-STONE. 



could receive no more, and then it dropt off. The stone 

 was then laid in milk, that it might purge itself of the pois- 

 on ; and it did so presently, the poison turning the milk yel- 

 low. The stone, as soon as it was purg'd, was again applied 

 to the wound; and when it had drank in its dose, it was 

 again laid in milk. And this was reiterated till such time 

 as the stone had exhausted all the poison, after which the 

 arm was quickly heal'd." 



Mr. Thunberg also tells us that the farmers in the Cape 

 Colony cure the bites of serpents and of other venomous 

 reptiles by means of the " slange-steen," or snake-stone. 

 " It is imported," he says, " from the Indies, especially from 

 Malabar, and costs several rix dollars. It is convex on one 

 side, of a black color, with a pale ash-gray speck in the mid- 

 dle, and tubulated with very minute pores. When thrown 

 into water it causes bubbles to rise, which is a proof of its 

 being genuine, as it is, also, that if put into the mouth it 

 adheres to the palate. When it is applied to any part that 

 has been bitten by a serpent, it sticks fast to the wound and 

 extracts the poison ; as soon as it is saturated, it falls off of 

 itself. If it be then put into milk, it is supposed to be puri- 

 fied from the poison it had absorbed, and the milk is said to 

 be turned blue by it. Frequently, however, the wound is 

 scarified with a razor previously to the application of the 

 stone." 



" This antidote," says Barrow, when speaking of the snake- 

 stone, " appears to be, in fact, nothing more than a piece of 

 firm bone of some animal made into an oval shape, and 

 burnt round the edges so as to leave a whitish spot in the 

 middle. The country-people, who purchase this remedy un- 

 der the idea of its being a stone taken out of the head of a 

 certain species of serpent, were very much astonished on 

 being told that it was only a piece of bone, and the more so 

 on finding that this substance stood their test of the goodness 

 of the slange-steen^ which was that of throwing out bubbles 



