hard to stumble on a plant that is not an antidote to the bite of serpents. Our old herbals were compiled, however, almost entirely from the writings of the ancients, and from foreign sources. The ancients had a curious notion relative to the plant Basil (Oscimum basilicum), viz., "That there is a property in Basil to propagate scorpions, and that the smell thereof they are bred in the brains of men." Others deny this wonderful property, and make Basil a simple antidote.
"According unto Oribasius, physician unto Julian, the Africans, men best experienced in poisons, affirm, whosoever hath eaten Basil, although he be stung with a scorpion, shall feel no pain thereby, which is a very different effect, and rather antidotally destroying than seminally promoting its production."—Sir Thomas Browne, Vulgar Errors.
An old writer gives the following anecdote in point:
"Francis Marcio, an eminent statesman of Genoa, having sent an ambassador from that republic to the Duke of Milan, when he could neither procure an audience of leave from that prince, nor yet prevail with him to ratify his promises made to the Genoese, taking a fit opportunity, presented a handful of the herb Basil to the duke. The duke, somewhat surprised, asked what that meant? 'Sir,' replied the ambassador, 'this herb is of that nature, that if you handle it gently without squeezing, it will emit a pleasant and grateful scent; but if you squeeze and gripe it, 'twill not only lose its colour, but it will become productive of scorpions in a little time."—The Entertainer: London, 1717, p. 23.
Pliny tells us that a decoction from the leaves of the ash tree, given as a drink, is such a remedy that "nothing so soveraigne can be found against the poison of serpents;" and farther:
"That a serpent dare not come neare the shaddow of that tree. The serpent will chuse rather to goe into the fire than to flie from it to the leaves of the ash. A wonderful goodnesse of Dame Nature, that the ash doth bloome and flourish alwaies before that serpents come abroad, and never sheddeth leaves, but continueth green untill they be retired into their holes, and hidden within the ground."
The ancient opinion respecting the rooted antipathy between the ash and the serpent is not to be explained merely by the fact in natural history of its being an antidote, but it has a deeply mythical meaning. See, in the Prose Edda, the account of the ash Yggdrasill, and the serpents gnawing its roots. Loskiel corroborates Pliny as to the ash being an antidote:
"A decoction of the buds or bark of the white ash (Fraxinus carolina) taken inwardly is said to be a certain remedy against the effects of poison," i.e. of the rattlesnake.
Serpents afford Pliny a theme for inexhaustible wonders. The strangest of his relations perhaps is where he tells us that serpents, "when they have stung or bitten a man, die for very greefe and sorrow that they have done such a mischeefe." He makes a special exception, however, of the murderous salamander, who has no such "pricke and remorse of conscience," but would "destroy whole nations at one time," if not prevented. In this same book (xxix.) he gives a receipt for making the famous theriacum, or treacle, of vipers' flesh. Another strange notion of the ancients was "that the marrow of a man's backe bone will breed to a snake" (Hist. Nat., x. 66.). This perhaps, originally, had a mystic meaning; for a great proportion of the innumerable serpent stories have a deeper foundation than a credulous fancy or lively imagination.
Take, for instance, the wide-spread legend of the sea-serpent. Mr. Deane says,—