SECT. XVIII.—ON THE CERASTES AND ASP.
According to Galen, there are three kinds of asps: that called the land asp, the chelidonian, and the third the ptyas, which is the most pernicious of all; for, stretching its neck, and measuring a convenient distance, with great sagacity, it disgorges the poison into the body. This is said to be the kind of asp which Queen Cleopatra, when Augustus, having vanquished Antony, wished to seize on her, took and applied to her left breast, and being bitten by it she died very quickly. When a person is bitten by the cerastes the part becomes tumefied, with hardness and blisters, and from the bite there flows an ichor which is sometimes black and sometimes pale, and like leeks; the whole system becomes of a dark pale colour, with erection of the privy member, and mental alienation; then dimness of sight comes on, and they die at last convulsed, as in tetanus. When a person is bitten by an asp, the bite resembles the prick of a needle, being very small in appearance, and without tumefaction, and it discharges blood not copiously but in small quantity, and of a black colour. Straightway dimness of the eyes seizes them, and various pains all over the body, which are altogether slight, and not without enjoyment, supervene; wherefore Nicander has properly said, “and without suffering dies the man.” The colour is changed and becomes as green as grass, there is a gnawing pain at the orifice of the stomach, the forehead is constantly drawn upwards, the eyelids are moved insensibly as in sleep, and with these symptoms death cuts off the man before the third part of a day has passed over. In both these cases speedy amputation of the extremities averts the evil. Wherefore the bitten part is to be amputated without delay, if possible, or the flesh is to be cut off immediately down to the bone, in order that the poison may not pass through the parts which are bitten and the adjacent ones. Then what remains is to be seared by cauteries. For the poison of these, like that of the basilisk and bull’s blood, quickly coagulates the blood and spirits in the arteries.
Commentary. According to Nicander, the most pestiferous asp is about an ell in length, its colour squalid, its eyes of a drowsy appearance, and when it bites a person it leaves a very small wound; neither swelling nor inflammation is perceived, “and the man without pain sinks into a profound sleep.” This is the serpent which Cleopatra despatched herself with. See some curious remarks upon this event, and the nature of the serpent in Galen (Ther. ad Pison.), from which our author borrows his account of it.
Nicander says of the cerastes that it resembles the male viper, only that the latter has no horns, whereas the former has either two or four. Isidorus says of them, “Aspis vocata quod morsu venena immittat et aspergat: ἱὸς enim Græci venenum dicunt, et inde aspis quod morsu venenato interimat” (Orig. xii, iv); and of the cerastes, “Cerastes serpens dictus eo quod in capite cornua habeat similia arietum: sunt autem quadrigemina cornicula, quorum ostentatione, veluti escâ illiciens sollicitata animalia perimit.” (Ibid.) Harris says, “The shephephon (Gen. xlix. 17) is probably the cerastes, a serpent of the viper kind.” (Nat. Hist. of the Bible.) Bochart, however, has proved that the shephephon signifies both the cerastes and the hæmorrhus, which are very much alike, being both vipers. (Hier. ii, 416.) Sprengel, in fact, makes the hæmorrhus to be the same as the cerastes.
Our author’s treatment is principally taken from Dioscorides. Aëtius, however, gives the fullest account of them. He says the sting of the most fatal species of asp proves fatal in three hours; and that those wounded by the cerastes generally live nine days. He represents the asp as occasioning great coldness, torpor, and at last convulsions. Besides the local remedies applicable in all such cases, he recommends in an especial manner vinegar, which is to be administered in great quantities. Celsus thus explains the way in which vinegar proves efficacious for counteracting the effect of a frigorific poison: “Credo quoniam id (acetum) quamvis refrigerandi vim habet, tamen habet etiam dissipandi. Quo fit ut terra respersa eo spumat. Eadem ergo vi verisimile est spissescentem quoque intus humorem hominis ab eo discuti, et sic dari sanitatem.”
The author of the work ‘Euporistôn,’ usually published with those of Dioscorides, recommends, in the case of a person stung by the asp, constant shaking, beating, and movement of the whole body, with the affusion of hot salt water. (Euporist. ii, 120.)
Pliny says the poison of an asp proves immediately fatal when introduced into a fresh wound, more slowly when the sore is old, and that it is perfectly innoxious when swallowed by the mouth. (N. H. xxix, 18.)
The account which Avicenna gives of these serpents is mostly taken from Aëtius and our author.
Agricola describes the asp to be four feet long, and of the thickness of a spear. The cerastes, he says, in other respects resembles a viper, except that it has two or four substances on its head like horns.
Madden, a late traveller in the East, gives a different account of the horned serpent (coluber cerastes); he says that of two which he purchased from the Psylli one was a foot long, and the other a foot and a half. A lancet smeared with the venom of one of them killed a dog in three hours. The French naturalists who attended the expedition to Egypt found a viper, called hage by the inhabitants, which they held to be identical with the asp of the ancients. We need have no hesitation then in deciding that the coluber Ægyptiacus is the celebrated asp of antiquity. That the cerastes was a variety of the asp seems highly probable from the description which Nicander gives of both. (Theriac 177 and 259.) See also Wilkinson’s ‘Thebes,’ p. 378. In fine, the asp and cerastes were merely varieties of the common viper of Egypt.