338 THE SNAKES OF SOUTH AFRICA. 



Snake stones being rather expensive, they are naturally in 

 the hands of the few, consequently if a man is bitten his friends 

 rush of^ with all speed for the nearest possessor of a Snake stone. 

 It is in these cases practically impossible for it to be applied 

 within live minutes or so, therefore even admitting it possessed 

 the virtues attributed to it, the venom would already have 

 entered the general circulation, and no amount of suction at the 

 site of the bite would draw it out again. 



The belief in Snake stones, the application of the palpitating 

 flesh of fowls and pigeons to the site of the bite, and other 

 popular remedies are dangerous delusions. 



When the Dutch first settled at the Cape and established a 

 Station there as a sort of half-way house in their East Indian 

 trade, which was conducted by the East Indian Netherland's 

 Company, sometime about the year 1652, they brought a few 

 of these Snake stones from the Indies, principally Malabar. 



Some of these stones are, to the present day, in the possession 

 of old Boer families, whose faith in their efficacy for the cure of 

 snake bite is unshakeable. 



Swallowing Snake Venom. 



It is a general belief amongst the natives, and a large section 

 of the colonists of South Africa, that, if snake venom is swallowed 

 it will confer immunity to snake bite. In consequence the 

 j)igmy Bushmen, Hottentots, and Kafirs, after killing a venomous 

 snake, cut out its venom glands and swallowed them. 



I have met many colonists who were so sure of their immunity 

 that they offered to allow me to inject them with snake venom. 

 The offers certainly were tempting, but my conscience and the 

 law would not permit it. 



At intervals during the past ten years or so I have fed various 

 sjXicies of animals, domestic and otherwise, on the venoms of 

 different kinds of South African snakes. When any of these 

 creatures were bitten by a snake or injected with its venom by 

 means of a hypodermic syringe, they died just as rapidly as 

 animals which had not been fed upon snake venom. 



The following is one instance from a score in my note-book. 

 An adult Caj)e jackal, the size of a spaniel, was fed for six weeks 

 with Puff Adder venom. Every second day half a dozen Puff 



