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MIRACLE-MONGERS AND THEIR METHODS
183
Vipers' flesh was formerly esteemed for its medicinal virtues, and its salt was thought to exceed every other animal product in giving vigor to a languid constitution.
According to Cornelins Heinrich Agrippa (called Agrippa of Nettesheim), a German philosopher, and student of alchemy and magic, who was born in 1486, and died in 1535, "if you would handle adders and snakes without harm, wash your hands in the juice of radishes, and you may do so without harm."
Even though it may seem a digression, I yield to the temptation to include here an extraordinary "snake story" taken from An Actor Abroad, which Edmund Leathes published in 1880:
I will here relate the story of a sad death—I might feel inclined to call it suicide—which occurred in Melbourne shortly before my arrival in the colonies. About a year previous to the time of which I am now writing, a gentleman of birth and education, a Cambridge B. A, a barrister by profession and a literary man by
