Navarette[1109] and Barbot[1110] both tell us that a certain remedy against the sting of a Scorpion, is to rub the wound with a child’s private member. This, the latter adds, immediately takes away the pain, and then the venom exhales. The moisture that comes from a hen’s mouth, Barbot says, is also good for the same. The Persians believe that Scorpions may be deprived of the power of stinging, by means of a certain prayer which they make use of for that purpose. The person who has the power of “binding the Scorpion,” as it is called, turns his face toward the sign Scorpio, in the heavens, and repeats this prayer; while every person present, at the conclusion of a sentence, claps his hands. After this is done they think that they are perfectly safe; nor, if they should chance to see any Scorpions during that night, do they scruple to take hold of them, trusting to the efficacy of this fancied all-powerful charm. “I have frequently seen,” says Francklin, “the man in whose family I lived, repeat the above-mentioned prayer, on being desired by his children to bind the Scorpions; after which the whole family has gone quietly and contentedly to bed, fully persuaded that they could receive no hurt by them.”[1111] Bell says the Persians “have such a dread of these creatures, that, when provoked by any person, they wish a Kashan Scorpion may sting him.”[1112] An old story is, that a Scorpion surrounded with live coals, finding no method of escaping, grows desperate from its situation, and stings itself to death. This, though considered a mere fable of antiquity, may still have some truth, if we believe the following from the pen of Ulloa: “We more than once,” says this traveler, “entertained ourselves with an experiment of putting a Scorpion into a glass vessel, and injecting a little smoke of tobacco, and immediately by stopping it found that its aversion to this smell is such, that it falls into the most furious agitations, till, giving itself several stings on the head, it finds relief by destroying itself.”[1113] There is also told a story in the East Indies, that “the Scorpion is sometimes so pestered with the pismires, that he stings himself to death in the head with his tail, and so becomes a prey to the pismires.”[1114] The Scorpion was an emblem of the Egyptian goddess Selk; and she is usually found represented with this animal bound upon her head.[1115] Ælian mentions Scorpions of Coptos, which, though inflicting a deadly sting, and dreaded by the people, so far respected the Egyptian goddess Isis, who was particularly worshiped in that city, that women, in going to express their grief before her, walked with bare feet, or lay upon the ground, without receiving any injury from them.[1116] The Ethiopians that dwell near the River Hydaspis commonly eat Scorpions and serpents without the slightest harm, “which certainly proceeds from no other thing than a secret and wonderful constitution of the body!” says Mercurialis.[1117]