VOL. XXXIX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TKAN8ACTIONS. 87 



were frequently bitten in the fields.as they caught the vipers, they always carried 

 a phial of sallad oil along with them, that as soon as they perceived themselves 

 wounded, they without any loss of time bathed the part with it; and if it was the 

 heel, they wet the stocking thoroughly with it; if the finger, which happened 

 oftenest, they poured some of it into that finger of their glove, which they im- 

 mediately put on again, and thus never fell any further inconvenience from 

 the accident, not even so much as from the sting of a common bee. 



Perhaps the oil may be found of use in the bite of rattle- snakes, and other 

 venomous animals; especially if we consider, that in the fields a man seldom 

 or never receives more than one bite at a time, which does not infect him with 

 so much venom as was instilled into the man's blood, when in these voluntary 

 experiments he suffered himself to be bitten twice together; and had likewise 

 been bitten 3 times but about a week or 10 days before; some remains of which 

 venom, it is highly reasonable to imagine, might still infect his blood at the 

 time he repeated the experiments, so as to make a fresh quantity of the venom 

 operate with greater violence on his body, than if he had been quite a fresh 

 man, never infected with the like poison before, or at least at so great an in- 

 terval of time, tliat his blood might have been entirely free from all remains of 

 such an acrid infection. From these experiments is it not reasonable to imagine, 

 that the oil by itself may be as efficacious against the sting of a scorpion, as 

 if scorpions were infused in it? 



Thus then a remedy against the bite of the viper is as publicly known as the 

 famous Dampier's powder against the bite of a mad dog, first published by Sir 

 Hans Sloane, Bart, when seer. R. S. in N° 237 of these Transactions, Anno 

 1698;* which afterwards, when he was president of the Royal College of Phy- 



• The lichen cinereus terrestris is mentioned as being said to be exceedingly efficacious in curing 

 dogs bitten by mad dogs; in a letter of Mr. Oldenburg's, seer. R. S. Lend. July 6, l672. See 

 Derham's Collection of Philosophical Letters between Mr. Ray and his Correspondents, p. no 

 printed at London, 1718, 8vo. 



Dr. M. thought it proper to add the following passage taken out of the Journal-book of the Royal 

 Society, supposing it to be what Mr. Oldenburgh hints at in his letter. 



" Nov. 16, 1671. (Sir Robert Moray) exhibited a certain plant, which was by Mr. Wray called 

 lichen terrestris cinereus, said by Sir Robert Moray to be very good to cure dogs bitten by mad dogs: 

 His Royal Highness having caused it to be given to a whole kennel of dogs, bitten by a mad one, 

 which were all cured, except one of them, to whom none of it was given." 



The specimen was kept in the repository. 



The same virtue is likewise ascribed to this plant, in the third part of Morison's Plantar. Hist. 

 Oxon. published at Oxford, Anno l6"99. in folio, p. 632, where tlie author, speaking of the lichen 

 terrestris cinereua. Rail Hist, et Synops. says, Adversus morsum canis rabidi egregium est medica- 

 mentum. 



Dampier, and the College of Physicians, in their Pulv. Antilyssui, prescribe equal quantities of the 



