ANTIDOTES. 191 
galls of serpents, prepared and administered as recommended 
on another page, and although they necessarily cling to many 
“hocus pocus” manipulations and performances, yet now they 
boast of never losing a case | 
The first edition of the present work, published in 1870, 
in Bogota, serves many of them as a manual, and has initi- 
ated a system of treatment in cases of snake-bites which is 
gradually spreading itself throughout the entire country. 
Some of the tribes of the North American Indians use the 
galls of serpents (mixed with decoctions of herbs of little or 
no medicinal virtue), for curing bites ; and the same may be 
said of the San Blas (Isthmus of Darien) tribes, and also of 
tribes in Venezuela, and in the valley of the Amazon. 
A singular fact appears to be recognized in common by 
Curers and the “medicine men” among the Indians. 
When performing a cure, they are always particular to have 
an old woman wait upon the patient, and explicitly forbid 
and prohibit any young woman or a female whose menstrual 
flow is present from approaching his bedside, as this is known 
to cause an aggravation of the pains and augment the flow of 
blood, if any hemorrhage exists! I can attest to having 
witnessed the truth of this fact in a great number of’ cases. 
There is some psychological influence, some profound, un- 
explained relation, existing between the menstrual flow in 
woman and the serpent. I have seen in two cases of preg- 
nant women, and in one case of a young woman whose men- 
strual flow was present, who stepped over a snake which was 
crossing the road, by mere chance, while I was following ‘a 
few rods in the rear, came up to, and found the reptile winding 
and coiling itself up, as though in great pain, soon cease the 
violence of its movements, and appear to lose all power of 
locomotion, remaining semi-torpid for nearly an hour there- 
after! This is a fact attested by hundreds of Curers, and 
