ON SERPENT-WORSHIt AND VENOMOUS SNAKES. 115 



tions capable of being simulated or fictitious, hydrophobia is 

 acknowledged to be one. Of " snake-bite," a remarkable and 

 striking instance was some years ago related to me by Dr. 

 Henderson, then of the 3rd Light Dragoons, in whose person it took 

 place. Suffice it here to observe that Dr. Henderson was a man of 

 strong nervous, as he was of physical, power. While on the line of 

 march with his regiment in India, he had occasion to insert his 

 hand into a box in which were various articles packed in straw. 

 No sooner had he disturbed them than from the box a cobra darted 

 past his hand and so escaped ; as it did so he instinctively with- 

 drew his hand, and so observed that blood trickled from a wound 

 upon it. He immediately experienced the symptoms characteristic 

 of cobra-bite ; nor was it until the regimental assistant surgeon, 

 who had meantime visited him, convinced him that the wound was 

 caused, not by a cobra, but by a projecting nail that he began to 

 recover from the alarming, though fictitious, symptoms from which 

 he had suffered. May not the question be asked — Are there many 

 such cases on record ? 



Snakes in relation to medicine. From very ancient times, down 

 to and at the present day, serpents, poisonous and innocuous, have 

 been used in medicine, not only among uncivilised people, but 

 among those who possessed all the advantages of civilisation. The 

 tereak of the ancient Arabian physicians (whence is derived our 

 word treacle) ; the theriaca of Andromachus, variously known at 

 the present day under the names of treak farook, and Venice treacle, 

 were and still are, believed to owe their antidotal power against 

 poisons, and curative properties in certain diseases, to the presence 

 in their composition of the dried flesh of vipers or other poisonous 

 snakes. 



According to The Dispensatory, published in London in 1746, 

 among other constituents of Theriaca Andromachi, squills, long 

 pepper, opium, and dried vipers were enumerated. 



According to Chinese therapeutics, " From the habit of a " par- 

 ticular, but unnamed species of venomous " snake, to seek refuge 

 in hedges and crevices, it is concluded that, mixed with other drugs, 

 it introduces itself into the most secret places of the body," and 

 so exerts its curative properties. Several species of snake are 

 used by the Chinese medicinally, or as food. The viper in particu- 

 lar is conveyed about for sale in baskets, tubs, or jars, either alive 

 or made into broth. 



In the islands of the Malayan Archipelago the fat of snakes is 

 held to be a sovereign application to wounds. Even in our own 

 country there are districts in which tlie flesh of the native viper 

 {Yipera Berus) is applied locally, in cases of bite of that reptile. 



