People have doubted whether or not this yellow liquor is the poison, and the reason has been, that animals who had tasted it did not die as when bitten, but this reason does not hold in modern physics. We know why the saliva of a mad dog has been given to animals and has not affected them; and a German physician was bold enough to distil the pus, or putrid matter, flowing from the ulcer of a person infected by the plague, and taste it afterwards without bad consequences; so that it is clear the poison has no activity, till through some sore or wound it is admitted into circulation. Again, the tooth itself, divested of that poison, has as little effect. The viper deprived of his canine teeth, an operation very easily performed, bites without any fatal consequence with the others; and many instances there have been of mad dogs having bit people cloathed in coarse woollen stuff, which had so far cleaned the teeth of the saliva in passing through it, as not to have left the smallest inflammation after the wound. I forbear to fatigue the reader by longer insisting upon this subject. A long dissertation would remain upon the incantation of serpents. There is no doubt of its reality. The scriptures are full of it. All that have been in Egypt have seen as many different instances as they chose. Some have doubted that it was a trick, and that the animals so handled had been first trained, and then disarmed of their power of hurting; and fond of the discovery, they have rested themselves upon it, without experiment, in the face of all antiquity. But I will not hesitate to aver, that I have seen at Cairo (and this may be seen daily without trouble or expence) a man who came from above the catacombs, where the pits of the mummy birds are kept, who has taken a Cerastes with his naked hand from a number of others lying at the bottom of the tub, has put it upon his bare head, covered it with the common red cap he wears, then taken it out, put it in his breast, and tied it about his neck like a necklace; after which it has been applied to a hen, and bit it, which has died in a few minutes; and, to complete the experiment, the man has taken it by the neck, and beginning at his tail, has ate it as one would do a carrot or a stock of celery, without any seeming repugnance. We know from history, that where any country has been remarkably infested with serpents, there the people have been screened by this secret. The Psylli and Marmarides of old undoubtedly were defended in this manner, _Ad Quorum cantus mites Jacuére Cerastæ._ SIL. ITAL. lib. iii.