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2 willingly stretch out their hand or foot, when the reptile is
3 advancing tow ards them ; after the serpent has bitten them
4 it retires, and the patient then feels relieved. The greater part
5 of such patients are, once a year, viz., in July or August,
6 visited, wherever they may be, by their reptile friends. I
7 met with only a small number who required to be bitten twice
8 a-year ; and with only one indeed who wanted to be bitten
9 monthly. What I have related is certainly a singular fact,
10 and highly interesting to naturalists. But how is it that
11 this disease is peculiar to the Punjab ? The natives assert,
12 that the bite (when it is with young) of the Amphisbosna (erro-
13 neously called Dumuha , two-mouthed serpent), which is gene-
14 rally believed not to be venomous, is the cause of the disease,
15 and that the virus at certain periods ferments in the human
16 frame. This species of serpent being indigenous in America,
17 it is worth inquiry, whether the disease is not also to be
18 found in that part of the world? A patient thus afflicted
19 told me, on one occasion, that he was advised as a curative
20 process, to seize the serpent at the moment it approached him,
21 and having previously wrapped a cloth round its head, to
22 bite it off. By neglecting to envelope the serpent’s head, he
23 w^as told that he would lose two of his front teeth.
24 Some hakims at Lahore recommended as a remedy, the fruit
25 of Crataeva Tapia , mixed with oil, which is used externally as
26 an ointment.
27 After this digression about serpents, the relation of which
28 may have been of some interest, it will probably not appear
29 superfluous, if I explain the meaning of the expression used
30 by the faqueer who performed the experiments with the vipers,
31 in calling the maharajah, the “ son of a laundress.”
32 One of the wives of Runjeet Sing gave birth to a girl, at
33 Vetalah, and in those countries the birth of a female child
34 is not considered as a happy or fortunate event. By chance
35 a laundress in the neighbourhood brought forth at the same
36 time, a strong boy. The ranee having been apprised
37 of this, and wishing to have a male child at any price,