Virgil makes mention of this practice:
“Disce et odoratam stabulis accendere cedrum,
Galbaneoque agitare graves nidore chelydros.”
Georg. iii, 314.
See a long list of substances used in fumigations for driving away serpents in Lucan. (Pharsal. ix, 916.) It is different from that of Nicander and our author. For example: it contains tamarix, costus, thapsos, &c. Arsenic occurs among the articles mentioned by Rhases. (Cont. xxxv.) It is also mentioned in the Geoponics (l. c.)
Nicander affirms, and it has been generally believed, that human saliva proves destructive to serpents. Galen says that it will kill the scorpion. Aristotle states, that it is destructive to most venomous reptiles. (H. A. viii, 28.) Redi maintains that this is an ancient error; but Andreas Laurentius declares that he knew from experience that the human saliva is destructive to serpents.
Nicander recommends a composition containing cedar-berries, fleabane, sage, and other such articles for preserving the body from venomous reptiles. Paxamus directs us to smear the face with a composition made of the roasted flour of fenugreek, with the juice of the wild mallows and oil. (Geopon. xv, 6.) He says it preserves the face from the stings of bees in particular.
The κώνωψ, here translated gnat, as it is in the English version of the scriptures, (Matt. xxiii, 24,) is proved by Bochart (Hierozoon. iii, 442); and by Harris (Nat. Hist. of the Bible), from Aristotle, Plutarch, and others, to mean properly a kind of insect that is bred in the lees of wine.
SECT. II.—THE GENERAL TREATMENT OF ALL PERSONS BITTEN OR STUNG BY ANY VENOMOUS ANIMAL.
If a person happen to be bitten or stung by any venomous animal he ought immediately to get the part sucked. The person who sucks it should not be fasting, and he ought first to rinse his mouth with wine and retain oil in it; and then, if the part admits, it should be cupped with much heat, scarifying also the surrounding parts; for the poison is forced back out of the body along with the spirits and blood which are drawn out. The part in which the wound is situated ought also to be burnt and eschars formed on it, and amputation of the extremities may then be seasonably practised if the animal that inflicted the bite be of a deadly nature, such as the asp, the cerastes, the viper, and the like: as Galen relates that a certain vine-dresser being bitten by a viper, and knowing the animal, immediately cut off the finger that was bitten with his pruning hook, and was entirely freed from the danger. But if the poison be already distributed over the body, venesection ought to be had recourse to immediately, especially if the person bitten be plethoric; and pepper and garlic given to eat with the food, and strong wine to drink, whereby the system will be filled with fresh vapours and a suitable heat. Afterwards cataplasms are to be applied that can warm and stimulate the bite, such as a mixture of the ashes of cabbage or of fig with vinegar, or with the strained lye, or with the sauce of pickle. Likewise onions may be mixed with polenta or bread, and strong leeks with salts, or warm liquid pitch with salts, or cedar-rosin, or goat’s dung. It will also be proper to pour upon the parts hot vinegar in which calamint has been boiled, or with vinegar and sea water, or with brine. We are to apply to the part fowls, more especially hens, cut up and still warm, or other such animals, for they absorb the poison and soothe the pains. And we must have recourse to plasters, such as that formed from salts, that from rosemary and adarce, and on the whole such things as are of an acrid nature. And in general all persons bitten or stung by any venomous animal ought, unless the deep-seated parts are wholly unhurt, to take in the first place potions containing endive, heath, or astragalus with vinegar, or bitumen and Christ’s thorn in like manner, or a decoction of Christ’s thorn; or two drachms of dried weasel with wine, which is a cried-up remedy; or the blood of the sea-tortoise, or a drachm of castor with diluted wine, or a drachm of frankincense, or of Sicyonian root, or the juice of leeks, or ground pine, or alsander, or cinnamon, or birthwort, or the seed of the chaste tree, or cypress balls, or seseli, or pepper, or the seed of trefoil, or bay berries, or river crabs roasted or boiled. Use the following compound theriac.