230 THE MAGIC OP JEWELS AND CHARMS
tions
and Pestilential Bubos," and it could be used in the treatment of
malignant tremors, venereal disorders, etc. With the manuscript was
found a specimen snake-stone. This was described as being a thin oval
body, about an inch in length and three-quarters of an inch broad ; the
color was gray with light streaks, and the surface was bright and
polished. It was of the consistency of horn, and the writer of the note
in the "Lancet" believes that it was part of a stag's antler or some
similar substance, from which the animal matter had been removed by the
action of heat; many of the Oriental snake-stones are of this type,
but, as we have already seen, a great variety of more or less porous
materials have been and are still used in this way in different parts
of the world. A practical experiment was made in 1867 by Dr. John
Schrott, who excited six cobras to bite a number of pariah dogs.
Without delay the snake-stones were applied to the wounds, but they
proved absolute failures, death resulting as speedily as though
nothing had been done.63
Jean
Baptiste Tavernier, the great Oriental traveller of the seventeenth
century, gives the following description of the ' ' snake-stones ' '
found in India :M
Finally,
I will mention the snake-stone, which is about the size of a doubloon,
some approximating to an oval form, being thicker in the middle and
tapering toward the edges. The Indians say that it forms on the head of
certain snakes, but I rather believe that the priests of these
idolators make them think this, and that this stone is a composition of
certain drugs. However this may be, it has great virtue to draw out
all the poison, when anyone has been bitten by a venomous creature. If
the part that has been bitten has not been punctured, an incision must
be made, so that the blood can flow out, and when the stone has been
applied, it does not fall off until it has absorbed all the poison
which gathers about it. To clean it, woman's milk is used, or should
this be lacking, cow's milk, and after ten or twelve
""Account of the Snake Stone," in Lancet, vol. 177, London, July-Dec. 1909, p. 1478.
H " Les aix voyages de Jean Baptiste Tavernier/' Pt. II, Paris, 1678, pp. 410, *lli Bk. II, ch. xriv.
