wondrous medical skill on the lucky man who tastes of the serpent-broth.[1]
In some of the Hebridean Isles, notably that of Lewis, the greatest faith prevails in the efficacy of so-called "serpent-stones," which are simply perforated, water-worn stones. Some have had two plain circles cut upon them. These are dipped in water, which is then given to cattle as a cure for swelling or for snake-bite. Should such a charmed stone be unattainable (and their number is exceedingly limited), the head of an adder may be tied to a string and dipped in the water, with equally good result.
The oft-quoted remedy, "A hair of the dog that bit you," appears in many forms. In Devonshire, any person bitten by a viper is advised at once to kill the creature and rub the wound with its fat. I am told that this practice has survived in some of the Northern States of America, where the flesh of a rattlesnake is accounted the best cure for its own bite.
In Black's very interesting volume on "Folk-Medicine," he mentions that the belief in the power of snake-skin as a cure for rheumatism still exists among the sturdy New-Englanders, some of whom are not above the weakness of wearing a snake-skin round the neck, or keeping a pet snake as a charm. The use by American Indians of rattlesnake-oil for the same malady seems not devoid of reason; but the New England faith in snake-skin is probably a direct heritage from Britain, where Mr. Black tells of an old man who used to sit on the steps of King's College Chapel, at Cambridge, and earn his living by exhibiting the common English snake, and selling the sloughs of snakes, to be bound round the forehead and temples of persons suffering from headache.
In Durham, an eel's skin worn as a garter round the naked leg is considered a preventive of cramp, while in Northumberland it is esteemed the best bandage for a sprained limb.
So, too, in Sussex, the approved cure for a swollen neck is to draw a snake nine times across the throat of the sufferer, after which operation the snake is killed, and its skin sewed in a piece of silk and worn round the patient's neck. Sometimes the snake is put in a bottle, which is tightly corked and buried in the ground, and it is expected that, as the victim decays, the swelling will subside.
The quaint little drug-store at Osaka has led me into a long talk; but the subject is a large one, and the chief difficulty lies in selecting a few examples from the mass of material before me. I am sure that should these pages ever meet the eye of my Japanese friend, he will acknowledge that my interest in the medicine-lore of his ancestors was certainly justifiable.—Nineteenth Century.
- ↑ See "In the Hebrides," by C. F. Gordon Cumming, London, Chatto & Windus.
