For this purpose it
is used in Brazil. A quantity of the bruised leaves, which are to be
frequently changed, is laid on the scarified wound, and some spoonfuls
of the expressed juice are from time to time administered to the
patient, till he is found to be free from the symptoms, especially the
dreadful anxiety which follows the wounds of venomous reptiles. _E.
perfoliatum_ has a very similar action, and _Mikania opifera_ is
employed in the same way.--(_Lindley's Veg. Kingd._, p. 707.) These
facts tend to confirm the accuracy of Tschudi and Humboldt against
Hancock.

[187] _Campaigns and Cruises in Venezuela_, vol. i., p. 43.

[188] _Dahomey and the Dahomans._

[189] Several of the _Aristolochieae_--plants generally having a very
bitter taste, and a strong, pungent, disagreeable smell--are valuable
alexipharmics. There is a plant very common in Jamaica, where it is
called snake-withe, trailing over the stone fences, which I suspect to
be an _Aristolochia_, and perhaps _A. trilobata_; it is employed as a
sudden and potent sudorific, and as an antidote to serpent-bites in
other countries, for in Jamaica there is no venomous reptile. The _A.
anguicida_ of Carthagena is described by Jacquin as fatal to serpents.
He says that the juice of the root chewed and introduced into the mouth
of a serpent so stupefies it that it may be for a long time handled with
impunity: if the reptile is compelled to swallow a few drops, it
perishes in convulsions. The root is also reputed to be an antidote to
serpent-bites. "It is not a little remarkable," observes Dr Lindley,
"that the power of stupefying snakes, ascribed in Carthagena to
_Aristolochia anguicida_, should be also attributed to _A. pallida_,
_longa_, _b{oe}tica_, _sempervirens_ and _rotunda_; which are said to be
the plants with which the Egyptian jugglers stupefy the snakes they play
with."

[190] _Ceylon_, i., 147.

[191] "On the Habits of the Viper in Silesia:" _Zoologist_, p. 829.

[192] _Trav. to the Sources of the Nile, passim._

[193] _Travels in the Levant, passim._

[194] _Discov. in Africa_, ii., p. 292.

[195] _Lucan's Pharsalia._

[196] _Ind. Field Sports._

[197] _Mod. Egyptians._

[198] _Zool._, 6400.

[199] _Beauties of Christianity._

[200] _Note-book of a Naturalist_, 202.

[201] Napier's _Scenes and Sports_, vol. ii., p. 227.

[202] Tennent's _Ceylon_.

X.

BEAUTY.

Very much of the delight with which we pursue natural history