# Omniana/Volume 2/Poison of Serpents

239. Poison of Serpents.
"I know, (says Kicherer,) it is commonly reported that the venom of serpents may be swallowed without danger, but our experience leads us to believe the contrary," He relates, that in cross- ​ing a desert in time of drought, with a large party of his converts, they travelled till the third day without finding a drop of water. At length they came to a very small pool, just sufficient to assuage their own thirst, but not that of their animals. A girl was just going to drink, "when, he says, to our great mortification, we perceived that it had been poisoned by the Boschemen, for we discovered many heads of serpents swimming in it. Water thus poisoned will soon cause a person who has drunk it to become so giddy that he cannot walk upright, and if an antidote be not speedily administered, he will certainly expire in a few hours. It is however true, that Boschemen, being properly prepared, will drink the poisoned water without prejudice to their health."
If this excellent Missionary had said that he himself saw such an effect pro​duced by this poisoned water, I should without hesitation have believed him, however contrary the tact might have appeared to the received opinion. But his experience, as he calls it, goes no farther than to show that the Hottentots believe water may thus be poisoned: . . they are likely enough to think so, and in those who having the same belief have drunk of the water, there can be little doubt that imagination would produce sickness, and possibly in some cases death.
What Kicherer says of the Boschemen being properly prepared, is worthy of more consideration. Thunberg tells us that "the Hottentots and Boschemen are said to fortify themselves against poisoned darts, and the bite of venomous animals, by suffering themselves to be gradually bitten by serpents, scorpions, and other venomous crea​tures, till they become accustomed to it; but these trials sometimes cost them their lives. The urine of an Hottentot thus prepared is esteemed an excellent antidote, or counterpoison, and is therefore drank by such as have been bitten by serpents."
If the former part of this account could be relied on, it should seem that these savages were acquainted with a method of producing by inoculation of animal poison a milder disease, which, like the vaccine, rendered the system proof against a more formidable virus. There is a curious passage in the adventures of Robert Drury, which bears, though distantly, upon this subject. An insect like a cow-tick, called poropongee, is found in that part of Madagascar which the Virzimbers possess, and in no other part of the country. Its bite is said to occasion an illness which lasts six or eight weeks, but to which no person is subject a second time, and the ​Virzimbers took care not to destroy this insect, because they found it a good protection against their neighbours who used to invade them.
But there is certainly another mode of becoming proof against serpents, besides that of inoculation. Bruce tells us that the mode by which the Arabs render themselves secure against the bite of the serpent is by chewing a certain root, and washing themselves with an infusion of certain plants in water. "I have seen many, (he says,) thus armed for a season, do pretty much the same feats as those that possessed the exemption naturally: the drugs were given me, and I several times armed myself, as I thought resolved to try the experiment; but my heart always failed me when I came to the trial, because among these wretched people it was a pretence they might very probably have sheltered themselves under, that I was a Christian, and therefore it had no ​effect upon me." He adds that he had still remaining by him a small quantity of the root, but never had an opportunity of trying the experiment. It is very much to be regretted that he did not give it to some person who would have tried it upon an animal, as might so easily have been done.
M. Jaquin, in a letter to Linnæus, says that the Indians in the West Indies charm serpents with the Aristolochia Anguicida. Forskohl also informed him that the Egyptians used a species of Aristolochia, (Birthwort,) but did not determine which species it is.
It has now been known for more than two thousand years, that some of the barbarous tribes both of Asia and Africa possess this secret, and yet no civilized nation has ever even attempted to procure the knowledge of a fact which very probably might lead to the most impor​tant consequences. A secret so widely diffused could not long remain concealed if it were properly sought for. If a trifling sum of money were placed at the disposal of our Consuls in Egypt or Barbary, it might soon be purchased, but it would be worth a philosophical mission. No person can say to what beneficial consequences the acquirement of this new power in medicine might lead; . . that it might furnish us with a preventative for canine madness seems not impossible.
* ↑ Transactions of the Missionary Society, Vol. 2, p. 34.
* ↑ English Translation, Vol. 2, p. 163.
* ↑ Hasselquist, p. 66.—Note.