CERASTES. 389 



in the same interval of time ; but I confess the 

 danger attending the dissection of the head of 

 this creature made me so cautious, that any obser- 

 vation I should make upon these parts would be 

 less to be depended upon." 



" People have doubted whether or not this yel- 

 low liquor is the poison, and the reason has been, 

 that animals who had tasted it, did not die as 

 when bitten, but this reason does not hold good 

 in modern physics. We know why the saliva of 

 a mad dog has been given to animals, and has 

 not affected them ; and a German physician was 

 bold enough to distil the pus or putrid matter 

 flowing from the ulcer of a person infected by the 

 plague, and taste it afterwards, without bad con- 

 sequences ; so that it is clear the poison has no 

 activity till through some sore or wound it is 

 admitted into the circulation. Again, the tooth 

 itself, divested of that poison, has as little effect. 

 The viper deprived of his canine teeth, an opera- 

 tion very easily performed, bites, without any 

 fatal consequence, with the others ; and many in- 

 stances there have been of mad dogs having bit 

 people cloathed in coarse woollen stuff, which had 

 so far cleaned the teeth of the saliva in passing 

 through it, as not to have left the smallest inflam- 

 mation after the wound." 



" The Cerastes is mentioned by name in Lucan, 

 and without warranting the separate existence of 

 any of the rest, I can see several that are but 

 the Cerastes under another term : the Thebanus 

 Ophites, the Ammodytes, the torricla Dipsas, and 



