EEPTILES AND SNAKE-STONES. 17 



easier, the pain diminishing gradually from the 

 shoulder downwards until it appeared entirely 

 confined to the immediate vicinity of the wound. 

 I then removed the stone : on putting it into a 

 cup of water, numbers of small air-bubbles rose 

 to the surface. In a short time the man 

 ceased to suffer any inconvenience from the 

 accident/'* 



Who will deny the evidence of such facts, 

 simply because they cannot understand them ? 

 Mr. E. Newman remarks very pertinently on 

 this same question : cc I have often been asto- 

 nished at the ridicule thrown over facts that we 

 cannot understand. Men of learning who laugh 

 at a phenomenon they have not seen, always 

 remind me of giggling girls who titter when 

 they hear two persons speak any language but 

 their own ; the cause of cachinnation is the same, 

 simple ignorance. "f 



Whether ' snake- stones ' be the true Bezoar 

 or the factitious animal charcoal, the principle of 

 action is much the same ; both are absorbents, 

 and both chiefly consist of phosphate of lime. 

 The first object appears to be inducing the blood 

 to flow freely to the wound, and then the remedy 

 is applied. It is very much like sucking out 



* Gosse's " Romance of Natural History." 

 t The Zoologist, p. 6983. 

 C 



