Viperae Exenterateae, c1745-1807

Glass specie jar, with wooden lid and paper labels, containing specimens of disembowelled viper/adder. Vipers had a whole range of uses including the cure of leprosy. From the Burges Collection.

Text on paper labels reads ‘Catal. Mat. Med. p. 127. no. 81’ and ‘VIPERAE EXENTERATAE.’

Pomet, in his Compleat History of Druggs, says ‘there is scarce a Medicine known in the World more able to purify the Mass of Blood, and give it its natural Fluidity: whence it does such considerable Feats in chronick Cases; as Scurvies, Erysipelas’s, scalded Heads, and strumous Breakings-out; causing the foul impure Humours to perspire through the Pores of the Skin. It is also one of the most powerful Remedies in Nature for Gout, Rheumatism, and Venereal Relicks; for it opens, penetrates, attenuates, and is sodorifick; so that it drives out any corrupted or malignant Humours, thro’ the Habit of the Body; it dissolves coagulated Blood, removes Inflammations, prevents Apostems, and cures Pleurisies. This Salt is very aperitiv