424 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. VIII. 
MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 
No. I—“O PAO DA COBRA” OR SERPENT’S WOOD OF 
THE PORTUGUESE. 
“O Pao da Cobra” or Serpent’s Wood was in great request among Europeans 
in India in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Everybody in those days 
seems to have provided himself with an antidote to snake-bites. The impres- 
sion of the number and extent of poisonous snakes in India then created has 
not yet died away. ._Many in Hurope even now believe that a European in 
India is never safe from a cobra-bite. But, as a matter of fact, I do not think 
there are among Huropeans more deaths due to snake-bites than to polo-playing 
or to steeple-chases, The impression is no doubt kept up by the immense 
number of deaths, upwards of 21,000 per year or 1 in about 10,166, of the 
population, that take place, due to this cause, among the natives, owing to 
their habit of going about barefooted and of sleeping on ground-floors, In 
this paper I wish to describe chiefly the three kinds of Serpent’s Wood men- 
tioned in the ‘ Colloquios da India” by Dr. Garcia d’Orta, a work first 
published in Goa in 1563, and soon afterwards translated into Latin and 
various European languages. To judge from the descriptions given by the 
author, it is really astonishing to see the immense knowledge he had gained of 
the drugs not only of India, but even those of Persia and China. The three 
kinds of Serpent’s Wood described by him are as follows :— 
(1). “ The first one known as Rannetul in Ceylon is a shrub growing to the 
height of two or three feet; it throws out few branches, that is four or five, 
which are very thin. The root, which is the useful part, is thin like the 
thinnest twig of a vine, and it is knotted, and always some portion of the root 
is exposed, and if it is eaten away or torn in any part, it throws out fresh 
roots, The fruit of this shrub is like that of the elder tree, but is red and 
harder ; it grows in round clusters like those of the woodbine ; sare 
the flowers are very red, and they grow in a round terminal cluster ; the leaf 
is like that of a peach-tree, buta little darker in colour, The colour of the 
root is between white and grey, and it is smooth to the touch although not 
soft, and it is very bitter. This plant is to be found in many parts, also in 
the tableland of Goa.” From this description many writers have identified 
the plant with Ophiorrhiza Mungas, Linn., N. 0. Rubiacee, but it has to be 
noted that its flowers are not very red, nor is it to be found in Goa or in the 
South Konkan. The description, although not exact in every particular, 
appears to meto refer more to Ranwolfia serpentina, Benth., N. O. Apocy- 
nacee,& species common both to Ceylon and to Goa, The pedicles and 
calyces of the flowers of this plant are of a bright red colour, and the root is 
very bitter, while that of the Ophiorrhiza is said to have a taste like gentian. 
The properties of Ranwolfia serpentina have not yet been thoroughly 
