Note 67 — Chapter IV · ANIMAL-WORSHIP.
Reading edition
In the Panjâb it is believed that when a goat kills a snake it eats it and then ruminates, after which it spits out a Manka or bead, which, when applied to a snake-bite, absorbs the poison and swells. If it be then put in milk and squeezed, the poison drips out of it like blood, and the patient is cured. If it is not put in milk, it will burst to pieces.67 It hence resembles the Ovum Anguinum, or Druid’s Egg, to which reference has been already made.68 If a person suffers from spleen, they take the spleen of a he-goat, if the patient be a male; or of a she-goat, if the patient be a female. It is rubbed on the region of the spleen seven times on a Sunday or Tuesday, pierced with acacia thorns and hung on a tree. As the goat’s spleen dries, the spleen of the patient reduces.