SERPENT POISON. 181 



Rarior ; inventus mediis fons unus arenis 

 Largus aquae ; sed quern serpentum turbat tenebat 

 Vix capiente loco ; stabant in margine siccae 

 Aspides, in mediis sitiebant Dipsades undis. 

 Ductor, ut aspexit perituros fonte relicto 

 Alloquitur : Vana specie conterrite leti 

 Ne dubita miles tutos haurire liquores ; 

 Noxia serpentum est admisto sanguine pestis ; 

 Morsu virus habent et fatum dente minantur ; 

 Pocula morte carent. Dixit dubuumque venenum 



Hausit." 



v 



Which has been elegantly rendered into English as follows : 



" And now with fiercer heat the desert glows, 

 And mid-day sun-darts aggravate their woes ; 

 When, lo ! a spring amid the sandy plain 

 Shows its clear mouth to cheer the fainting train ; 

 But round the guarded brink in thick array, 

 Dire aspics roll'd their congregated way, 

 And thirsting in the midst the deadly dipsas lay. 

 Black horror seized their veins, and at the view 

 Back from the fount the troops recoiling flew ; 

 When, wise above the crowd, by cares unquell'd, 

 Their trusted leader thus their dread dispell'd 

 1 Let not vain terrors thus your minds enslave, 

 Nor dream the serpent brood can taint the wave ; 

 Urged by the fatal fang their poison kills, 

 But mixes harmless with the bubbling rills.' 

 Dauntless he spoke, and, bending as he stood, 

 Drank with cool courage the suspected flood.'.' 



Celsus, an older writer still, and styled the " Eoman Hippocrates," 

 tells us in his great work, De Medicind, that the poison of serpents 

 may be safely enough sucked by the mouth from the wound, 

 warning the operator, however, to be careful that the lips and 

 palate are free from any cut or excoriation by which the venom 

 might find its way into the blood, in which case it might be just 

 as 'dangerous as if introduced into the circulation by the fang itself. 

 It should be stated that the grass or ringed snake spoken of above 

 is not in the least poisonous, though ugly enough to look at, and 



