316 



KEPTILES. 



[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. 



