A mechanical account of poisons in several essays / By Richard Mead.

  • Mead, Richard, 1673-1754.
Date:
1729
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A mechanical account of poisons in several essays / By Richard Mead. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    30/130 (page 18)
    f ‘ ' ■ . ' \ *. A' t . - , r if given in jail Quantities, and duly repeated; provided moderate Sweats beincouragedin Bed; thus it fucceede'd with Vonfieur Char as in the before cited Cafe, and in forrie others I could relate; in one of which the Mifchief had gone fo far as to induce an univerfal iBerus• This leads me lafl of all to hint fomething concerning the Ufe of the Viper in PhjJickv; becaufe Authors are very large in enumerating its Virtues againfl many, and thofe too fome of ’em very obflinate, Diflempers* One of the firfl whom we find in Antiquity to have made ule o the Flefii of this Creature to medicinalPurpo- fes, was, I think, Antonins Mu-fa, the Famous Phyfician to OBavius Cafar; of whom Pliny (q) tells us, T hat when he met with incur able XJ leers, he ordered the eating of Vipers^ and by this means they wire quickly healed* It is not improbable that he might have learned this from the great Greek Phyfician Crater us, mention’d often by Ci¬ cero in his Epiflles to Atticus,who* as Porphyrius (r) relates, very happily cured, a miferable Slave, whofe Slejn in a ftrange manner fell off from his Bones, by advifing him to feed upon Vipers drejfed after the manner offifo. Be this as it will, in Galen's, time the profitable Qualities of the Viper were very commonly known; himfelf rela¬ ting (s') very remarkable Stories of the Cures of the Ele¬ phant iafs, or Lepra, done by the Viper Wine. Aretaus, wlie mofl probably liv’d about the fame time with Galen, and of all the Ancients has mofl accurately defcribed theElephantiafs, commends, as Craterus did, the eating of Vipers inPcead of Fifh in the fame Difeafes (t), A nd to this purpofe I remember, that as Lopes (u) in his Relations of the Kingdom of Congo in Africa, takes no¬ tice how greedily the Negroes eat Adders, roafling them, and efieemin^ them as the moll delicious Food ; fo Dampier (q) Lib. 30. c. 13. (r) Dt Abjhncnt. ah animal, lib. T. p. m. 16. (s) Defimpl. Medic. Vacult. lib. u. c. 1. (r) Curat. Dint urn. lib. 2. c. r->. (u) Vid* Furchaf. Pilgrinis, Part 2. 1. 7. c. 9. (x) alfo