40 
THE THANATOPHIDIA OF INDIA. 
is no occasion to intoxicate tlie person, bat give it freely, and 
at frequent intervals. 
If he become low, apply sinapisms and liot bottles, galvanism 
or electro-magnetism over the heart and diaphragm. Cold 
douches may also be useful. If the respiration be failing, 
artificial respiration by the “ Marshall Hall or “ Sylvester 
method” may be employed. 
The antidotes, in addition, may be used by those who have 
faith in them; but as I have said, I fear there is no reason to 
believe that they are of any use. Encourage and cheer the 
patient as much as possible. As to local effects, if there be 
great pain, anodynes may be applied or administered, and anti¬ 
septic poultices to remove sloughs ; collections of matter must 
be opened. 
Other symptoms are to be treated on general surgical prin¬ 
ciples. 
This, I believe, is the sum and substance of what we can do 
in snake-bite. If the person be not thoroughly poisoned, we 
may help him to recover. If he be badly bitten by one of the 
more deadly snakes, we can do no more. 
I take the following account of the snake-stone from Sir E. 
Tennent’s work on Ceylon :—- 
They are of the size and appearance of small black almonds, 
highly polished and of an extremely light substance. I hey are 
said to attach themselves closely when applied to the bitten 
part, the blood that oozes from the bite being rapidly imbibed 
by the porous substance of the so-called stone. They adhere 
tenaciously for three or four minutes. Meanwhile the bitten limb 
is well rubbed downwards from the shoulder towards the fingers. 
At length they drop off, and the bitten person is said to be 
free from danger. Instances are narrated where happy results 
occurred. A bit of root is at the same time passed over the 
stone. One bit of root so used proved to be an aristolochia 
stem. 
The snake-stone was examined by Professor Faraday, who 
expressed his belief that “ it is ‘ a piece of charred bone, which 
has been filled with blood, perhaps, several times, and then 
carefully charred again. Evidence of this is afforded, as well 
by the apertures of cells or tubes on its surface, as by the fact 
that it yields and breaks under pressure, and exhibits an organic 
structure within. When heated slightly, water rises from it, 
and also a little ammonia; and if heated still more highly in 
the air, carbon burns away, and a bulky white ash is left, re¬ 
taining the shape and size of the stone. 3 This ash, as is evident 
from inspection, cannot have belonged to any vegetable sub¬ 
stance, for it is almost entirely composed 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 ?’ 33 
Tennent goes on to say: “ 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 submitted to him was that 
of the Indian on whose person the effect was exhibited. The 
snake-charmers from the coast, who visit Ceylon, profess to 
prepare the snake-stones for themselves, and preserve the 
composition a secret. Dr. Davy, on the authority of Sir A. 
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 confirms 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 resembling bezoar, all of them (except the 
first, which possessed a slight absorbent power) were quite inert, 
and incapable of having any effect except in the imagination of 
the patient. Thunberg was shown the snake-stone used by the 
boors at the Cape in 1772, which was imported for them from 
the Indies, especially from Malabar, at so high a price that few 
of the farmers could afford to possess themselves of it. He 
describes it as convex on one side, black, and so porous that 
when thrown into water it caused bubbles to arise, and hence 
by its absorbent qualities it served, if speedily applied, to extract 
the poison from the wound.” 
In a foot-note Tennent gives the following further parti¬ 
culars since the foregoing account was published: “ I have 
received a note from Mr. Hardy, relative to the piedra ponsona , 
the snake-stone of Mexico, in which he gives the following 
account of the method of preparing and applying it:— c Take a 
piece of hart’s horn of any convenient size and shape, cover it 
well round with grass or hay, enclose both in a thin piece of 
sheet copper well wrapped round them, and place the parcel in 
a charcoal fire till the bone is sufficiently charred. When cold, 
remove the calcinated horn from its envelope, when it will be 
ready for immediate use. In this state it will resemble a 
solid black fibrous substance of the same shape and size as 
before it was submitted to this treatment. Use .—The wound 
being slightly punctured, apply the bone to the opening, to 
which it will adhere firmly for the space of two minutes, and 
when it falls, it should be received into a basin of water; it 
should then be dried in a cloth, and again applied to the wound. 
But it will not adhere longer than about one minute. In like 
manner it may be applied a third time : but now it will fall 
almost immediately, and nothing will cause it to adhere any 
more. 3 
“ These effects I witnessed in the case of a bite of a rattle¬ 
snake at Oposura, a town in the province of Sonora, in Mexico, 
from whence I obtained my recipe; and I have given other 
particulars respecting it in my Travels in the interior of Mexico, 
published in 1830—31.— R. TV. Hardy , Rath, 30 th January, 
I860.” 
There is a germ of possible truth in the idea that these 
stones can be of use, for, if they absorb as they are said to do, 
no doubt some blood and poison mixed are taken up by their 
pores. 
But when we reflect on the quantity of poison and the force 
and depth with and to which it is injected through the fang of 
either Cobra or Viper, and the extreme rapidity with which it 
is hurried along in the vascular system to the nerve centres, I 
think it is obvious that the application of one of these stones 
can be of little use in a real bite of a deadly snake, and that a 
belief in their efficacy is a dangerous delusion, as it may be the 
cause of the loss of the first two or three seconds, which are so 
precious to the sufferer, for on what is done in them his life 
may depend. I may add that I have found the snake-stone as 
powerless for good as any of the so-called antidotes. 
