ANTIDOTES AND REMEDIES. 148 



man, and satisfied myself he had no Snake about his person. When we arrived at the 

 spot, he played upon a small pipe, and after persevering for some time, out came a large 

 Cobra from an ant-hill which I knew it occupied. On seeing the man, it tried to escape, 

 but he caught it by the tail and kept swinging it round until we reached the bungalow. 

 He then made it dance, but before long it bit him above the knee. He immediately bandaged 

 the leg above the bite, and applied a Snake-stone to the wound to extract the poison. He was 

 in great pain for a few minutes, but after that it gradually went away, the stone falling 

 off just before he was relieved. 



"When he recovered, he held up a cloth, at which the Snake flew, and caught its fangs 

 in it. While in that position, the man passed his hand up its back, and, having seized it by 

 the throat, he extracted the fangs in my presence and gave them to me. He then squeezed out 

 the poison on to a leaf. It was a clear oily substance, and when rubbed on the hand, produced 

 a fine lather. I carefully watched the whole operation, which was also witnessed by my clerk 

 and two or three other persons." 



With regard to the so-called charming of Serpents, there is no need of imagining these 

 men to be possessed of any superhuman powers ; for these, and most of the venomous Serpents, 

 are peculiarly indolent, and averse to using the terrible weapons which they wield ; in proof of 

 which assertion, the reader may recollect that Mr. Waterton, though not pretending to be 

 a Snake-charmer, carried a number of rattlesnakes in his bare hand without being bitten 

 for his meddling. Not that I would positively assert that the Snake-charmers do not possess 

 some means of rendering themselves comparatively proof against the Serpent's bite ; for it is 

 reasonable to conclude that, just as a secretion of a cow will, when it has been suffered to 

 pervade the system, render it proof against the poison of the small-pox, there may be some 

 substance which, by a kind of inoculation, can guard the recipient against the poison of 

 the Cobra. In the last century, the one was quite as irremediable as the other. 



Another fact is yet to be mentioned. In almost every instance where a poison, vegetable 

 or animal, is likely to gain access to human beings, Nature supplies a remedy at no great dis- 

 tance, just as, to take a familiar instance, the dock is always to be found near the nettle. 

 There certainly are many poisons for which no sure remedy has been discovered, and, until 

 lately, the venom of the Cobra ranked among that number. Recently, however, some impor- 

 tant discoveries have been made, which seem to prove that the bite of the Cobra may be cured 

 in two methods, viz., the external application of certain substances to the wound, and the 

 internal administration of others. As the general character of the Cobra is almost precisely 

 the same as that of many other venomous Serpents, and has long been familiar to the public, 

 I shall devote the greater portion of the space, not to the creature itself, but to the remedies 

 for its bite. 



The first of these remedies is a plant belonging to the group of birth-worts, and known to 

 botanists by the name of AristolocMa indica. 



This plant has long been considered as a valuable remedy for the bite of the Cobra, but 

 the accounts of its use and mode of operation have mostly been vague and scarcely trust- 

 worthy. I have, however, been fortunate enough to obtain much valuable information on 

 this subject from R. Lowther, formerly Commissioner in India, who was accustomed to 

 employ this plant very largely in cases of Cobra-bites, and has kindly forwarded the following 

 communication on the subject : — 



"According to your request I have the pleasure of inclosing a statement of one out of 

 at least twenty cases of Snake-bites, in which the exhibition of the AristolocMa indica was 

 attended with complete success, on patients who were brought to my house on a litter, in a 

 perfect state of coma from the bites of venomous Snakes. 



"The AristolocMa indica is noticed by medical writers as a powerful stimulant, much 

 extolled as a remedy for Snake-bites, in support of which 1 need only refer you to my detailed 

 statement, as also to the circumstances under which the plant was transferred to my garden at 

 Allahabad. The gentleman from whom I received it (Mr, Breton, Deputy Collector of 

 Customs) gave me the following account of it : 



