SCINCUS OFFICINALIS. 53 



rous i but it has been principally recommended as a restorative, 

 and as a remedy in elephantiasis, lepra, and other cutaneous dis- 

 eases. In consequence of its reputed alexipharmic powers it 

 entered as an ingredient into the old compound preparations which 

 went under the names of Theriaca Andromachi, and Confectio 

 Damocratis. " For a long time," says Mr. Griffith, " the Scink 

 has been regarded as a remedy against certain maladies. Before 

 this it was extolled by Pliny as a specific for the wounds caused by 

 poisoned arrows ; subsequently it has been vaunted as an aphro- 

 disiac, and quackery or ignorance has placed it in the rank of those 

 medicaments which merit the distinguished honour of being 

 employed to reanimate the exhausted powers and to rekindle the 

 fires of love, when exhausted by the frosts of age or at the expense 

 of debauchery. Its flesh has been administered as depurative, 

 excitant, anthelmintic, analeptic, anti-cancerous, sialagogue, and 

 antispasmodic. Notwithstanding this confused mass of medical 

 properties, thus put together without discrimination, as if to form 

 the vade mecum of some empiric, now appears completely ridicu- 

 lous, yet even at the present day, in many countries, fables are still 

 published respecting the success of this remedy. In spite, however, 

 of the discredit into which it has fallen among the faculty in gene- 

 ral, it does not appear to be totally devoid of efficacy in some 

 complaints."* 



There is a large species of Scink, [Lacerta occidua, Shaw.) called 

 the Galley-wasp, in Jamaica and the Antilles, where it is common, 

 whose bite is believed — without sufficient evidence — to be ex- 

 tremely venomous, and causes immediate death. 



* Animal Kingdom, vol. ix. p. 323. 



