LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 



74 



common elder ointment has been applied to dogs 

 and cattle bitten by vipers with the best success ; 

 but olive-oil is, nevertheless, not to be despised. 

 The viperine remedy probably had its origin in 

 the notion that the best remedy for a venomous 

 wound was to apply the crushed creature that had 

 inflicted it to the injured part. 



The demand for vipers, when viper-wine and 

 viper-broth were all the fashion for invigorating 

 worn-out or vitiated constitutions, was very great, 

 and they formed a part of the stores of every fash- 

 ionable apothecary's dispensary. Supplies were 

 regularly sent in by the viper-catchers, and I re- 

 member hearing a story of a large box full of 

 these reptiles having been received by one of 

 these helpers of men in our town. The lid was 

 not properly secured, and the imprisoned serpents 

 wriggled out, finding their way up stairs, down 

 stairs, and in my lady's chamber, and frightening 

 the maids and apprentices to death , some of whom 

 found a viper or two comfortably coiled up between 

 the sheets, just as they were about to step into bed. 



The viperine remedy had classical authority for 

 its ministration, nor did he who had the care of 

 the health of Octavius Caesar find it fail. 



The renowned physitian, Antonius Musa, having 

 certain patients in cure under his hand, who had 

 ulcers that were thought incurable, prescribed them 

 to eat vipers' flesh ; and wonderfull it is how soone 

 he healed them cleane by that means.* 



Nor was the great Greek practitioner Craterus 

 less successful. He was called in to a wretched 

 slave whose skin fell from his bones, advised him 

 to eat viper dressed like fish, and happily cured 

 his patient. Galen and Aretaeus speak loudly in 

 the praise of such a remedy in cases of elephan- 

 tiasis, and the former relates many stories of cures 

 of that disease by viper-wine. The native of 

 Tonquin, if we are to believe Dampier, treats his 

 friends with an infusion of snakes and scorpions, 

 accounting the arrack in which they have been 

 digested not only an invigorating cordial, but an 

 antidote against leprosy and all poisons. Dr. 

 Mead, who mentions this as well as the other 

 instances above noticed, states that he was told by 

 a learned physician, who resided many years at 

 Bengal, that it is a constanjt practice there to 

 order in diet the cobra de capello to persons 

 wasted by long distempers, and adds that the 

 physicians in Italy and France very commonly 

 prescribe the broth and jelly of vipers for invigor- 

 ation and purification of the blood. He evidently 

 thinks very highly of the remedy, and expresses 

 his opinion that our physicians deal too cautiously 

 or sparingly with it. The ancient Romans of 

 distinction, it seems, were seldom without a prep- 

 aration of this kind, which they took as an in- 

 vigorator, and as conducive to long and healthy 

 life. The capons which were served up to the 

 beautiful wife of Sir Kenelm Digby were fed 

 upon vipers. 



A word or two upon the poison and its nature, 



* Holland's Pliny. 



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 experi- 

 ments upon the difference 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 assertion, 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 thigh. A great ebullition and effervescence 

 immediately ensued in the manner of a fermenta- 

 tion, and the blood was changed into a yellow 

 fluid, confirming the observation 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 in- 

 to a warm glass, in which were five or six grains 

 of the viperine poison newly ejected, was not vis- 

 ibly altered either in color 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 

 microscopic appearances presented by the poi- 

 son : 



Under a microscope at first sight 1 could discover 

 nothing but a parcel of small salts nimbly floating 

 in the liquor ; but in a very short time the appear- 

 ance was changed, and these saline particles were 

 now shot out, as it were, into crystals of an incredi- 

 ble tenuity and sharpness, with something like 

 knots here and there, from which they seemed to 

 proceed ; so that the whole texture did, in a man- 

 ner, represent a spider's web, though infinitely 

 finer and more minute ; and yet withal so rigid 

 were these pellucid spicula or darts, that they re- 

 mained unaltered upon my glass for several 

 months. 



Redi found that the dried poison, when diluted 

 with water, was still active and deleterious. 



But terrible as is the effect of the attack of 

 these cruel scourges, the bite or the instillation of 

 the poison into a wound are the only things to be 

 dreaded : 



Morsu virus habent, et fatum dente minantur 

 Pocula morte carent. 



Tozzi, a viper-charmer, astonished the Grand 

 Duke Ferdinand and the natural philosophers 

 who were present with him, who had been speak- 

 ing of the certain death which would await any 



