Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 6.djvu/190

178 In the fourth volume of the Medical Repository, an old journal published in this city in the beginning of the present century, may be found a communication from a Virginia gentleman, entitled "The Chinese Snake-stone, and its Operation as an Antidote to Poison." This remarkable stone, it appears, was brought from Bombay in 1740, and a portion of it subsequently came into the hands of Rev. Mr. Lewis Chaustien, of Frederick County, who employed it in cases of snake and dog bites. The writer describes how, his little daughter having been bitten by a mad dog, he was induced to carry her to Mr. Chaustien in order to obtain for her the benefit of his remedy. Having been informed that the stone, which was in three pieces, would adhere to no wound except one inflicted by a serpent or a mad dog, he tried the experiment of placing a piece upon two scratches on his child's body occasioned by a recent fall, but it immediately dropped off. On being applied, however, to the dog-bite, it at once took hold like a leech, and continued to stick for eight hours; and the other two pieces adhered successively an equal length of time before they fell off. They were then immersed in hot water, when, in a short time, a number of small bubbles began to rise, and a scum, like oil of a greenish-yellow color, soon covered the surface. The pieces were afterward dried in warm ashes. Mr. Chaustien exhibited a certificate which had accompanied the stone from Bombay, and which attested its efficacy in extracting venom from the bites of all poisonous animals. Another piece was in the possession of a Mr. Joseph Fredd, of Loudon County, Va. These wonderful stones doubtless still exist with virtues unimpaired—a profitable inheritance for those whose privilege it is to bestow their inestimable boon upon credulous humanity.

One of the most ancient measures employed in the case of a dog suspected of hydrophobia was, a prolonged sousing in cold water, which treatment, however, was not confined to animals, but was extended to persons whom they had bitten. Euripides, the Greek tragic poet, was said to have been thus preserved from hydrophobia. Even the celebrated and sagacious physician Celsus appears to have had confidence in the process, as he thus describes it: "The only remedy is to cast the patient unexpectedly into a pond, and, if he has no knowledge of swimming, to allow him to sink, in order that he may drink, and to raise and again depress him, so that, although unwillingly, he may be satiated with water."

In more modern days, Van Helmont gives the following quaint description of the same formidable method, as employed in his time: "There is a castle situated by the sea-side, four leagues from Ghent, which they call Cataracta. I saw a ship passing by it, and therein an old man, naked, bound with cords, having a weight on his feet; under his armpits he was encompassed with a girdle, wherewith he was bound to the sail-yard. I asked what they meant by that spectacle. One of the mariners said that the old man was an