CI. The Long Black-Snake, is a land Animal, and very common. I have, says my Author, kill’d several of them, full six Foot in length. Its Bite, tho’ painful in its Consequences, is not deem’d commonly mortal: the wounded Part swells, and turns to a running Ulcer. No living Creature more nimble in Motion, or a greater Enemy to Mice, for it leaves not one of that Vermin alive, wherever it comes. This Serpent kills the Rattle-Snake, by twisting its Head about the Neck of that Snake, and whipping her to death with its Tail.
This Serpent very much haunts Dairy-houses in those Countries, and makes very free with unguarded Milk-Pans, and Cream-Pots: It delights to be among Hens, whose Eggs it does not suck, but swallows them whole, as all Snakes do their Sustenance. It will often swallow the Egg under a sitting Hen, and then lie in the Nest in the form of a Ring.
Allow here a few Remarks upon the Nature of Milk and Eggs.
In all kinds of Vegetables is an oily Substance, which is a Fluid that Animals take in with their Food, and no vegetable Food is nutrimental, without some Proportion of this Oil; even Grass, especially in its Seed, abounds therewith, which being thoroughly mixt with the Saliva, it turns milky in the Stomach: Which differs from the Chyle, only as having been more concocted, and containing a large degree of Salt, which renders it convertible into Curd.
MILK therefore is an oily vegetable Matter, circulated first in Plants, then in Animals, and capable of being reduced into a caseous and watry Substance, (or Cheese and Whey, if you please.) If Milk finds no opportunity of passing off in its own natural form, it turns to Fat, or goes away by Urine and Sweat, which commonly is the case in Men, for they generate Milk as well as Women, &c.
An Egg is from a certain animal Liquid, which by repeated Circulations in the Body, arrives at a perfect animal State; this Fluid comes from the oviparous Class, which is the White wherein the Yolk appears to swim. The White and Yolk of Eggs are neither alkaline nor acid.
The White dissolves by a gentle Heat, till it totally liquifies, (thus the Hen’s Heat gradually dissolves the White of a prolific Egg into Nourishment for the Chicken) but if you expose the White to the Heat of boiling Water, it will immediately harden, into a viscous, dry Mass.
The White of an Egg is a surprizing Menstruum, for if it be first boiled hard in the Shell, and afterwards suspended in the Air by a Thread, it will resolve and drop down into an insipid Liquor; which is that heterogeneous Menstruum so much used by Paracelsus, and will make a thorough Solution of Myrrh, which is more than Water, Oils, or Fire itself can effect[[267]]. N. B. The White of an Egg, by a strong Distillation, will afford an alkaline Spirit, and will putrify by Digestion; and a single Grain of this putrify’d Substance taken, will, like Poison, presently cause a Nausea, Vomit, Diarrhœa, Fever ... as Bellini tells us he has tried. And the learned Boerhaave himself, had seen those terrible Effects of it, which however are immediately stopt by drinking any acid Liquor, as Vinegar, Juice of Lemons. From Milk I proceed to give an account of an odd Custom about Cheese in Antiquity, viz. Among the Romans, one of their Tabernæ was called Casearia, a Caseo i. e. from Cheese; not because Cheese was made or sold in it, but because it was wont to be smoaked there: It being a Custom among the old Romans and other Italians, to make a great Smoke with Reeds and green Wood, on purpose to dry and colour their Cheese; hence the Poet Martial.
Non quemcunque focum, nec fumum caseus omnem,
Sed velabrensem, qui bibit ille sapit.——