Note h — BOOK IX.
Reading edition
My ingenious and learned Friend, Dr. Mead, examined with his Microscope, the Texture of a Viper’s Poyson, and found therein at first only a Parcel of small Salts nimbly floating in the Liquor; but in a short Time the Appearance was chang’d, and these saline Particles were shot out into Crystals, of an incredible Tenuity and Sharpness, with something like Knots here and there, from which they seem’d to proceed; so that the whole Texture did in a Manner represent a Spider’s Web, though infinitely finer. Mead of Poysons, p. 9.
As to the Nature and Operation of this Poyson, see the same ingenious Author’s Hypothesis, in his following Pages.
This Poyson of the Viper, lieth in a Bag in the Gums, at the Upper-end of the Teeth. It is separated from the Blood by a conglomerated Gland, lying in the anterior lateral Part of the Os Sincipitis; just behind the Orbit of the Eye: From which Gland lieth a Duct, that conveys the Poyson to the Bags at the Teeth.
The Teeth are tubulated, for the Conveyance, or Emission of the Poyson into the Wound, the Teeth make; but their Hollowness doth not reach to the Apex, or Top of the Tooth, (that being solid and sharp, the better to pierce;) but it ends in a long slit below the Point, out of which the Poyson is emitted. These Perforations of the Teeth, Galen saith, the Mountebanks us’d to stop with some kind of Paste, before they suffer’d the Vipers to bite them before their Spectators. Cuts of these Parts, &c. may be seen in the last cited Book of Dr. Mead. Also Dr. Tyson’s Anat. of the Rattle-Snake, in Philos. Transact. Nᵒ. 144.