his arm was again bathed, over a pan of charcoal, and rubbed with salad oil, heated in a ladle over the charcoal, by Dr. Mortimer's direction, who was the physician that drew up the account. From this last operation he declared that he found immediate ease, as though by some charm: he soon after fell into a profound sleep, and, after about nine hours' sound rest, awaked about six the next morning, and found himself very well; but in the afternoon, on drinking some rum and strong beer, so as to be almost intoxicated, the swelling returned, with much pain and cold sweats, which abated soon, on bathing the arm as before, and wrapping it up in brown paper soaked in the oil.”
The medicinal virtues supposed to reside in the flesh of the Viper are now known to be apocryphal: as late as the last century, however, they were sufficiently credited to cause a demand for these reptiles in the shops of apothecaries. Many persons were thus encouraged to practise the art of viper-catching as a means of living, who sometimes caught the reptile with a pair of wooden tongs, and at others with a forked stick, which being driven down upon the neck secured the head, while the operator seizing the end of the tail, suddenly threw the animal into a bag. A curious story is told of the alarm produced in the house of an apothecary of the old school, by the escape of a whole collection of Vipers from the ill-closed box in which they arrived. Among other terrors resultant, a great black one was discovered coiled up between the sheets of one of the beds, just as its occupant was about to step into it.
