century before Christ, laid claim securing themselves against the bites of venomous snakes, and points out the possibility that the knowledge now acquired by us through the researches of Dr. Fraser is but a relighting of the lamp which illuminated what we are too inclined to style the Dark Ages. even
to the power of
IMMUNITY TO SNAKE-POISON. In another column will be found a paper of some interest, which was read Dr. by
Ranking Society.
the last
at
of the
George
Asiatic The paper is designed to call attention to the fact that the means of procuring immunity against snake-poison by the administration
meeting
of snake-venom appears to have been known centuries ago. It is most interesting, both as a historical tribute to the skill of by-gone ages, which we treat with unmerited contempt, affording, so far as it goes, a corroboration results recently arrived at by Dr. Calthe of mette and Dr. Fraser working independently. are
wont
and
as
to
The evidence adduced by Dr. Ranking of the antiquity of this method of inducing immunity, consists in
a
quotation
from
a
manuscript
in
of the sixteenth century (1530 a.d.) written by a physician of Herat, one Muhammadibn-Yusuf, which clearly shows that the virtues Arabic
antidote were in those farto the snake-venom which it days attributed contained. Dr. Ranking mentions in this conof the