MISPLACED CONFIDENCE. 121 



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Puff Adder venom were added. The mixture was thoroughly 

 mixed and allowed to stand six hours. It was then carefully 

 strained. The liquid, which was reddish-brown in colour, was 

 divided into two portions and injected under the skin of the thighs 

 of two fowls. Both fowls died in less than two hours. 



Since writing the foregoing a friend has succeeded in obtaining 

 a sample of Isibiba from a Kafir medicine man in Swaziland. 

 He stated it to be the pulverized bark of a root mixed with the 

 powdered remains of the entire head of an adult Puff Adder. It 

 seems the head is first thoroughly dried and then pounded with 

 the bark. This preparation is supposed to be a certain cure 

 for the bite of a Puff Adder. The directions of the medicine man 

 were, to place a pinch or two on the tongue and swallow it ; to 

 scarify the wound and rub some into the cuts. Truly this was 

 a curious sort of " cure." A moment's reflection would make 

 it clear that the application of the pulverized head of a venomous 

 snake to a wound would simply increase the poisonous symptoms, 

 for snake venom does not lose any of its poisonous properties 

 if dried, unless allowed to decompose before drying it. 



However, I experimented with the substance in the usual 

 way, but, like the other samples of Isibiba, it had no curative 

 effect. Some was rubbed into incisions made in the legs of fowls 

 which had not been previously bitten or otherwise injected with 

 snake venom. 



The fowls showed slight symptoms of viperine poisoning. 



Misplaced Confidence. 



So, it seems after all, the confidence of the public has been 

 misplaced, and that of the native population as well. " Isibiba," 

 which, since the advent of the white man to South Africa, has 

 been regarded as an absolute cure for snake bite, has proved to 

 belong to those many popular " cures " which have failed utterly 

 when tested under proper conditions. Personally, I am in no way 

 prejudiced in favour of or against any alleged remedy. Rightly 

 or wrongly, I think it a duty to test these alleged snake bite 

 cures. It is a pity that it should be necessary that living creatures 

 should have to be sacrificed that we may be in a position to prove 

 conclusively whether alleged snake bite remedies are genuine or 

 not. However, there is no other way we know of. Provided 



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