Travels and adventures in South and Central America: Life in the Llanos of Venezuela by Ramón Páez

Author:Ramón Páez [Páez, Ramón]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-09-06T22:00:00+00:00

ARISTOLOCHIA APURENSIS.—Natural Size.

Next to the guaco in importance as an alexipharmic, may be classed the raiz de mato including several varieties of Aristolochias, the roots of which are intensely bitter. As its name implies, it is said to afford the mato —a large species of lizard—a prompt antidote against the bite of his old antagonist, the snake. There would seem to exist some ancient grudge between these two reptiles, many persons asserting that whenever they come in sight of one another, they instantly rush to the attack, the mato never failing to overcome his rival by his superior botanical knowledge; this, or his instinct, prompts him to seek the plant, and swallowing some of the leaves, returns recuperated to the fight. [28]

To the facts adduced above, I now have the pleasure of adding the testimony of such an authority as Gosse, who has devoted an entire chapter of his truly romantic book [29] to the consideration of a subject “well worthy of minute investigation by able and unprejudiced men of science, willing to receive unscientific information and suggestions, in various parts of the world, particularly in the intertropical regions of both hemispheres.” Among the many well-authenticated incidents recorded by him, I select the following as bearing a striking similarity to the one just mentioned: “Some animals, especially those which prey upon serpents, seem to be proof against their bites. The ichneumons, or mangoustes of Africa and Asia, have long been celebrated for their immunity, and veritable stories have been narrated of their having recourse to some herb, when bitten, after which they successfully renewed the attack. Percival, in his account of Ceylon, relates that a mangouste placed in a close room where a venomous serpent was, instead of darting at it, as he would ordinarily have done, ran peeping about, anxiously seeking some way of escape; but finding none, it returned to its master, crept into his bosom, and could by no means be persuaded to face the snake. When, however, both were removed out of the house into the open field, the mangouste instantly flew at the serpent, and soon destroyed it. After the combat the little quadruped suddenly disappeared for a few minutes, and again returned. Percival concludes, not unreasonably, that during its absence it had found the antidotal herb, and eaten of it. The natives state that the mangouste resorts on such occasions to the Ophiorhiza mungos, whose root is reputed a specific for serpent-bites. This is a cinchonaceous plant, so intensely bitter that it is called by the Malays by a name which signifies earth-gall.”

How wonderful the provisions of bountiful Nature are; and still more singular the readiness of the human intellect, whether in a rude or a cultivated state, to make them subservient to its wants! The most extraordinary antidote against the bite of serpents yet within my knowledge, is the one employed on the coast of Cartagena, not the “earth-gall,” which they possess of the bitterest kind in Aristolochia unguicida, but the gall of

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