Viper Heads

Moss grown on a human skull, the thigh bone of a hanged man, the ashes of a coal-black cat's head, animal excrement, black tips of crab's claws, burned hart's horn, toads, newts, serpents--these were medi- eval medicaments whose use has not yet entirely disappeared. Last week the American Medical Association reported a Frenchman's use of viper heads as a diuretic. Professor G. Billard of the Uni-versity of Clermont was consulted in a young girl's case of scarlet fever. Her kidneys would not function. Professor Billard had recently prepared an ancient diuretic which the French pharmacopoeia had dropped in 1884. He had soaked viper heads in alcohol, macerated the heads with chopped meat and salt water, filtered the concoction. This macerated residue he injected under the patient's skin. Quickly she recovered.

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