ANTIDOTES AND REMEDIES. 
143 
man, and satisfied myself he had no Snake about his person. When we arrived at the 
spot, he played upon a small pipe, and after persevering for some time, out came a large 
Cobra from an ant-hill which I knew it occupied. On seeing the man, it tried to escape, 
but he caught it by the tail and kept swinging it round until we reached the bungalow. 
He then made it dance, but before long it bit him above the knee. He immediately bandaged 
the leg above the bite, and applied a Snake-stone to the wound to extract the poison. He was 
in great pain for a few minutes, but after that it gradually went away, the stone falling 
off just before he was relieved. 
“ When he recovered, he held up a cloth, at which the Snake flew, and caught its fangs 
in it. While in that position, the man passed his hand up its back, and, having seized it by 
the throat, he extracted the fangs in my presence and gave them to me. He then squeezed out 
the poison on to a leaf. It was a clear oily substance, and when rubbed on the hand, produced 
a fine lather. I carefully watched the whole operation, which was also witnessed by my clerk 
and two or three other persons.” 
With regard to the so-called charming of Serpents, there is no need of imagining these 
men to be possessed of any superhuman powers ; for these, and most of the venomous Serpents, 
are peculiarly indolent, and averse to using the terrible weapons which they wield ; in proof of 
which assertion, the reader may recollect that Mr. Waterton, though not pretending to be 
a Snake-charmer, carried a number of rattlesnakes in his bare hand without being bitten 
for his meddling. Hot that I would positively assert that the Snake-charmers do not possess 
some means of rendering themselves comparatively proof against the Serpent’s bite ; for it is 
reasonable to conclude that, just as a secretion of a cow will, when it has been suffered to 
pervade the system, render it proof against the poison of the small-pox, there may be some 
substance which, by a kind of inoculation, can guard the recipient against the poison of 
the Cobra. In the last century, the one was quite as irremediable as the other. 
Another fact is yet to be mentioned. In almost every instance where a poison, vegetable 
or animal, is likely to gain access to human beings, Nature supplies a remedy at no great dis- 
tance, just as, to take a familiar instance, the dock is always to be found near the nettle. 
There certainly are many poisons for which no sure remedy has been discovered, and, until'- 
lately, the venom of the Cobra ranked among that number. Recently, however, some impor- 
tant discoveries have been made, which seem to prove that the bite of the Cobra may be cured 
in two methods, viz., the external application of certain substances to the wound, and the 
internal administration of others. As the general character of the Cobra is almost precisely" 
the same as that of many other venomous Serpents, and has long been familiar to the public, 
I shall devote the greater portion of the space, not to the creature itself, but to the remedies 
for its bite. 
The first of these remedies is a plant belonging to the group of birth-worts, and known to 
botanists by the name of AristolocJda indica. 
This plant has long been considered as a valuable remedy for the bite of the Cobra, but 
the accounts of its use and mode of operation have mostly been vague and scarcely trust- 
worthy. I have, however, been fortunate enough to obtain much valuable information on 
this subject from R. Lowther, formerly Commissioner in India, who was accustomed to 
employ this plant very largely in cases of Cobra-bites, and has kindly forwarded the following 
communication on the subject : — 
“According to your request I have the pleasure of inclosing a statement of one out of 
at least twenty cases of Snake-bites, in which the exhibition of the AristolocJda indica was 
attended with complete success, on patients who were brought to my house on a litter, in a 
perfect state of coma from the bites of venomous Snakes. 
“Th e Aristolochia indica is noticed by medical writers as a powerful stimulant, much 
extolled as a remedy for Snake-bites, in support of which I need only refer you to my detailed 
statement, as also to the circumstances under which the plant was transferred to my garden at 
Allahabad. The gentleman from whom I received it (Mr. Breton, Deputy Collector of 
Customs) gave me the following account of it; 
