316 
EBPTILES. 
[Chap. IX. 
any vegetable substance, for it is almost entirely com- 
posed of phosphate of lime. Mr. Faraday adds that " if 
the piece of matter has ever been employed as a spongy 
absorbent, it seems hardly fit for that purpose in its 
present state : but who can say to what treatment it has 
been subjected since it was fit for use, or to what treat- 
ment the natives may submit it when expecting to have 
occasion to use it ? " 
The probability is, that the animal charcoal, when 
instantaneously applied, may be sufficiently porous 
and absorbent to extract the venom from the recent 
wound, together with a portion of the blood, before it 
has had time to be carried into the system ; and that the 
blood which Mr. Faraday detected in the specimen sub- 
mitted to him was that of the Indian on whose person 
the effect was exhibited on the occasion to which my 
informant was an eye-witness. The snake-charmers 
from the coast who visit Ceylon profess to prepare the 
snake-stones for themselves, and to preserve the com- 
position a secret. Dr. Davy 1 , on the authority of Sir 
Alexander Johnston, says the manufacture of them is a 
lucrative trade, carried on by the monks of Manilla, who 
supply the merchants of India — and his analysis con- 
firms that of Mr. Faraday. Of the three different kinds 
which he examined — one being of partially burnt bone, 
and another of chalk, the third, consisting chiefly of 
vegetable matter, resembled bezoar, — all of them (ex- 
cept the first, which possessed a slight absorbent power) 
were quite inert, and incapable of having any effect 
except on the imagination of the patient. Thunberg 
was shown the snake-stone used by the boers at the 
1 Account of the Interior of Ceylon, ch. iii. p. 101. 
