ANT1DOTKH AND KEMKIUKH. \ I 



man, and satisii.-d myself he had no Snake about I. is person. When we arriTed at the 

 spot, he played upon a small pipe, and after persevering for some time, out came a large 

 Cobra fn.m an :mt liill which I knew it occupied. On seeing the man, it tried to escape, 

 1'Ut hecauk'ht it by the tail and kept swinging it mini. I until we reached the bungalow. 

 He then made it .lain-.-, hut before long it hit him ah..\,- the kn.-.-. He im mediately bandaged 

 t lie leg ax>ve the bite, and applied a Snake-stone to the wound to extract the poison. He wa 

 in great pain for a few minutes, but after that it gradually went away, the stone falling 

 off just In-fore he was relieved. 



" When he' recovered, he held up a cloth, at which the snake flew, and c-nmht its fangs 

 in it. While in that position, the man passed his han<l up its hack, and, having seized it by 

 the throat, he extracted the fangs in my presence and gave them to me. He then squeezed out 

 the poison on to a leaf. It \\ as n dear oily substance, and when rubbed on the hand, produced 

 a fine lather. I carefully watched the whole operation, which was also witnessed by my 

 clerk and two or three other persons." 



With regard to the so-called charming of Serpents, there is no need of imagining these 

 men to be possessed of any superhuman powers ; for these, and most of the venomous Serpents, 

 are peculiarly indolent, and averse to using the terrible weapons which they wield ; in proof of 

 which assertion, the reader may recollect that Mr. Waterton, though not pretending to be 

 a Snake-charmer, carried a numU-r of rattlesnakes in his bare hand without l>eing bitten 

 for his meddling. Not that I would positively assert that the Snake-charmers do not p<sess 

 some means of rendering themselves comparatively proof against the Serpent's bite; for it is 

 reasonable to conclude that, just as a secretion of a cow will, when it has been suffered to 

 pervade the system, render it proof against the poison of the small-pox, there may be some 

 substance which, by a kind of inoculation, can guard the recipient against the poison of 

 the Cobra. In the last century, the one was quite as irremediable as the other. 



Another fact is yet to be mentioned. In almost every instance where a poison, vegetable 

 or animal, is likely to gain access to human beings, Nature supplies a remedy at no great dis- 

 tance, just as, to take a familiar instance, the dock is always to be found near the nettle. 

 There certainly are many poisons for which no sure remedy has been discovered, and, until 

 lately, the venom of the Cobra ranked among that number. Recently, however, some impor- 

 tant discoveries have been made, which seem to prove that the bite of the Cobra may be cured 

 in two methods, viz., the external application of certain substances to the wound, and the 

 internal administration of others. As the general character of the Cobra is almost precisely 

 the same as that of many other venomous Serpents, and has long been familiar to the public, 

 I shall devote the greater portion of the space, not to the creature itself, but to the remedies 

 for its bite. 



The first of these remedies is a plant belonging to the group of birth-worts, and known 

 to botanists by the name of Aristolochia indica. 



This plant has long been considered as a valuable remedy for the bite of the Cobra, but 

 the accounts of its use and mode of operation have mostly been vague and scarcely trust- 

 worthy. I have, however, been fortunate enough to obtain much valuable information on 

 tliis subject from K. Lowther, formerly Commissioner in India, who was accustomed to 

 employ this plant very largely in cases of Cobra-bites, and has kindly forwarded the follow- 

 ing communication on the subject: 



"According to your request I have the pleasure of inclosing a statement of one out of 

 .it |.-a-t t\\.-iity cases of Snake-bit. >, in which the exhibition of the Arittolochia indica was 

 atti-nded \\ith complete success, on patiento who were brought to my house on a litter, in a 

 perfect state of coma from the bites of venomous Snakes. 



''The Aristolochia indica is noticed by medical writers as a powerful stimulant, much 

 extolled as a remedy for Snake-bites, in support of which I need only refer yon to my detailed 

 statement, as also to tin- circumstances under which the plant was transferred to my garden 

 at Allahabad. The gentleman from whom I received it (Mr. Breton, Deputy Collector of 

 Customs) gave me the following account of it : 



