SNAKE-POISON LITERATURE. 



101 



Dr. Davy's 

 researches. 



the stone was found in the head of a snake. 

 Taverini and Kempfer, however, considered it to 

 be an artificial fabrication. Dr. Alexander Stuart 

 stated (1749-50) that it was made of the burnt 

 bones of the small buffalo. Captain Herbert 

 says he obtained one from the people of Jowalins, 

 who said it was found with detritus in the valley 

 of the Satlej. Calculi taken from the stomach 

 and ilitestines of different animals are sometimes 

 used as snake-stones. There are, no doubt, many 

 kinds, all equally useless.* 



Dr. Davy, in 1889, published an account of 

 some experiments he performed with some of the 

 poisonous snakes of Ceylon (" Physiological and 

 Anatomical Researches") ; and in his " conclu- 

 sions and general remarks" points out that 



* Dr. Davy truly says : — "Too often, medicines have snake-stones. 

 got into repute as antidotes from being given in slight 

 cases in which recovery would have taken place without 

 medical treatment, — beneficial changes that were due 

 merely to the preservative powers of the constitution. 

 The reputation that many Indian medicines, and especi- 

 ally that snake-stones have acquired, affords striking 

 proof of the preceding remarks : of three different kinds 

 of these stones which I have examined, one consisted of 

 partially burnt bone, another of chalk, and the third 

 principally of average matter ; this last resembled a 



