82 OUR EEPTILES. 



than have hitherto been advanced, we are bound 

 to admit that in ' ' our inmost hearts " there lurks 

 a belief that the maternal viper has a knack of 

 swallowing its young. Whether our scientific 

 friends consider us renegade froni the true faith 

 or not, we will at least be true to ourselves. 



Vipers were formerly held in some estimation 

 as a medicine ; Pliny, Galen, and others extolled 

 their flesh for the cure of ulcers. Very recently, 

 in the French tariff, they were subject to a duty 

 of four shillings per pound. In Italy, a stew or 

 jelly of vipers is said to be regarded as a luxury. 



The poison of vipers still appears to have some 

 reputation amongst medical men practising in 

 the East. Dr. Honinberger, late physician to 

 the Court at Lahore, seems to have had faith in 

 it for " rumbling in the bowels." He thus 

 details the manner in which he procured the 

 virus, which on one occasion was obtained from 

 the Aspis Naja : 



The man who brought the serpents to me, having wrapped 

 his hand in a cloth, took them by the back of the neck, and, 

 with a small stick, forced open the mouth, when, by means 

 of a pair of forceps, I held a small lump of sugar under the 

 tooth, above which is the bladder containing the poison ; 

 and, on his pressing the bladder with the stick, a drop of 

 limpid fluid fell through the tubular tooth on the sugar, 

 which I instantly deposited in a porcelain mortar, moistening 

 it with a few drops of spirit, and commenced trituration ; I 

 then put the powder into a small phial containing one drachm 



