288 CURIOUS CREATURES. 



Even now, in some country places, viper broth is used as 

 a medicine ; and, in the first half of the eighteenth cen- 

 tury, its flesh, prepared in various ways, was thoroughly 

 recognised in the Pharmacopoeia. But Topsell, who 

 gathered together all the wisdom of the ancients, gives 

 so very many remedies (for all kinds of illnesses) that 

 may be derived from different parts, and treatment, of 

 serpents, that I can only pick out a few : 



" Pliny saith, that if you take out the right eye of 

 a serpent, and so bind it about any part of you, that it 

 is of great force against 'the watering or dropping of 

 the eyes, by meanes of a rhume issuing out thereat, if 

 the serpent be againe let goe alive. And so hee saith, 

 that a serpent's or snake's hart, if either it be bitten or 

 tyed to any part of you, that it is a present remedie for 

 the toothach : and hee addeth further, that if any man 

 doe tast of the snake's hart, that he shall never after 

 be hurt of any serpent. . . . The blood of a serpent is 

 more precious than Balsamum, and if you annoynt your 

 lips with a little of it, they will looke passing redde : 

 and, if the face be annoynted therewith, it will re- 

 ceive no spot or fleck, but causeth it to have an orient 

 and beautiful hue. It represseth all scabbiness of the 

 body, stinking in the teeth, and gummes, if they be 

 therewith annointed. The fat of a serpent speedily 

 helpeth all rednes, spots, and other infirmities of the 

 eyes, and beeing annoynted upon the eyeliddes, it 

 cleereth the eyes exceedingly. 



" Item, put them (serpents) into a glassed pot, and fill 

 the same with Butter in the Month of May, then lute 

 it well with paste (that is, Meal well kneaded) so that 

 nothing may evaporate, then sette the potte on the fire, 

 and let it boyle wel-nigh halfe a day : after this is done, 



