Travels in India (Tavernier) 106.10

106.10

There is still another much esteemed stone which is called the porcupine stone, which this animal has in its head, and is more efficacious against poison than bezoar. When one has placed it to steep in water for a quarter of an hour, the water becomes so bitter that there is nothing in the world to equal it in bitterness. This animal has also sometimes, in its belly, a stone which is of the same nature and equally good as that which comes from the head, except with this difference, that it loses nothing of its weight or size by steeping in water, while there is diminution of the other. During my life I have bought three of these stones. One cost me 500 écus, and I disposed of it subsequently with advantage to the Ambassador Dominico de Santis, of whom I have spoken in my accounts of Persia. I paid 400 écus for another, which I still keep; and the third was sold to me for 300 dais, and I made a present of it to a friend. I shall finally make mention of the snake-stone, which is nearly of the size of a double, some of them tending to an oval shape, being thick in the middle and becoming thin towards the edges. The Indians say that it grows on the heads of certain snakes, but I should rather believe that it is the priests of the idolaters who make them think so, and that this stone is a composition which is made of certain drugs. Whatever it may be, it has an excellent virtue in extracting all the poison when one has been bitten by a poisonous animal.