THE SNAKE AND ITS NATURAL FOES. 379 



Richards* tells us that " the flesh of vipers dressed as eels was strongly 

 11 recommended by Galen as a remedy for elephantiasis (leprosy) * * *, 

 " and the physicians of Italy, and France very commonly prescribed 

 "the broth, and jelly of viper's flesh for the same uses. It appears also 

 " to have been given in England, for Mead observes the patient ought 

 " to eat frequently of viper-jelly, or rather as the ancient manner was 

 " to boil vipers, and eat them like fish; or if the food will not go down, 

 " though really very good, and delicious fare, to make use, at least, of 

 " wine in which dried vipers have been digested six or seven days in a 

 " gentle heat." 



The Mead referred to was a celebrated physician who made many 

 observations, and researches concerning snakes, and died as recently as 

 1754. The same writer further remarks that viper wine " was actually 

 " an acknowledged preparation in the London Pharmacopoeia," and 

 further that '* Charles IPs physician in ordinary, Dr. Thomas Sherley, 

 " recommended what he termed ' Balsam of Bats ' as a remedy for 

 " hypochondria ; it was composed of ' adders, bats, sucking- whelps, 

 " earthworms, hog's grease (sic), the marrow of a stag, and the thigh- 

 bone of an ox." 



Reinf speaks of the Japanese entrapping the poisonous Trigono- 

 cephaly blomhoffii which they skin, and consume as a nerve strength- 

 ening food. This is a very common little snake in Japan, and China, 

 now known as Ancistrodon blomhojjii. 



Duhaldet mentions a snake in the Honan Province of China speckled 

 with white spots, the skin of which Chinese physicians steep in a vial 

 of wine "which they make use of as a good remedy against the palsy." 



When I was in Hongkong, I saw in the Chinese medicine men's 

 shops rows of bottles on shelves containing snakes of many kinds 

 preserved as in a museum. Steeping in the preservative were also 

 fragments of vegetable substances — bark, leaves and fruit — and this 

 horrible looking solution was decanted off as occasion required for the 

 treatment of various ailments. 



Richards§ remarks : " It is said that the flesh of the cobra was pre- 

 scribed in Bengal for wasting diseases." Theobald || speaks of the 



• " Landmarks of Snake Poison Literature,'' p. 65. 

 \ " Japan," p. 187. 

 j" China, "Vol.1, p. 102. 

 § Loc cit., p. 66. 



|| " Catalogue of Snakes. Brit. Burma," p. 37. 

 1G 



