106 THE RATTLESNAKE IN MEDICINE. 



When Bartram was in Florida he was asked to sit down to a feast with 

 the chief military man of the region, where the central dish was the car- 

 cass of a-great diamond rattlesnake the naturalist had killed that morning. 

 Long ("Travels of an Indian Interpreter") confessed that the flesh was 

 "delicious," and that he had frequently eaten it "with great gout." To 

 the darkies of the cotton states the rattler is always edible. Only a 

 year ago I was told by a gentleman in Alabama of two servants whom 

 he caught bitterly disputing over a carcass of this reptile. 



" Why, Jake," said he to one of the negroes, " what's the use of a 

 quarrel ? You couldn't get more than fifty cents for it any way." 



"Don' want 's hide," was Jake's reply. "Jim can hab dat. I wants 

 his flesh to eat !" 



Instances of this might be multiplied, but I leave them to say some- 

 thing about the place of the rattlesnake in popular pharmacy. Quoting 

 Loskiel : " The flesh of the rattlesnake, dried and boiled to a broth, is said 

 to be more nourishing than that of the viper, and of service. in consump- 

 tions. Their gall is likewise used as a medicine. . . . The skin usually 

 shed by rattlesnakes is dried and pounded fine by the Indians, who use 

 it internally for many purposes." John Carver records that the Chippe- 

 ways extracted splinters with the cast skin. " It is amazing," he exclaims, 

 " to see the sudden efficacy of this application, notwithstanding there does 

 not appear to be the least moisture remaining in it." Brickell, in his 

 quaint " Natural History of North Carolina," also refers to this point. 

 "These Snakes," he says, "cast their Skins every Year, and commonly 

 remain near the Place where the old Skin lies. These cast Skins are fre- 

 quently pulverized, and given with good success in Fevers; so is the Gall 

 mixed with Clay, made up in Pills, and given in Pestilential Fevers and 

 the Small Pox, for which it is accounted a noble Remedy and a great 

 Arcanum, which only some few pretend to know, and to have had the 

 first Knowledge and Experience of for many Years; so are the Rattles 

 good to expedite the Birth, and no doubt but it has all those excellent 

 Virtues that the Viper is endued with." We learn from Thomas Cam- 

 panins that a similar notion prevailed among the Swedes at the mouth 

 of the Delaware. 



The use of rattles in parturition or for abortion seems to have been 

 very wide-spread among our aborigines, extending into Mexico and far 

 northward. A Dakota medicine-man explained it by saying that the 

 child heard the rattle, and, supposing the snake was coming, made haste 

 to get out of its way — a remarkable example of hereditary instinct ! This 

 is nonsense, of course. The real explanation of the custom belongs to the 



