Howbeit they looked when he should have swollen
With the venomous bite of the viper; swelling is one of the
symptoms following the bite of this creature; and if the bite
does not issue in death, yet the swelling continues inflamed for
some time. The symptoms following the bite of a viper are said to
be F18 an acute pain in the place wounded;
swelling, first red, afterwards livid, spreading by degrees;
great faintness; a quick, low, and sometimes interrupted pulse;
sickness at the stomach; bilious convulsions: vomiting; cold
sweats; sometimes pains about the navel; and death itself, if the
strength of the patient, or the slightness of the bite, do not
overcome it: if he does overcome it, the swelling continues
inflamed for some time; and the symptoms abating, from the wound
runs a sanious liquor, little pustules are raised about it, and
the colour of the skin is as if the patient were icterical or
jaundice; or had the jaundice: the Arabic and Ethiopic versions
render it, "that he should burn", or "burnt"; that is, inflamed,
for the bite of the viper causes an inflammation, a hot swelling,
which rises up in pustules or blisters:
or fallen down dead suddenly;
for immediate death is sometimes the effect of such poison. Pliny
F19 relates, that the Scythians dip
their arrows in the sanies or corrupt matter of vipers, and in
human blood, which by the least touch causes immediate death; and
Pausanias F20 reports from a certain Phoenician,
that a man fleeing from a viper got up into a tree, where the
viper could not reach him, but it blew, or breathed out its
poison on the tree, and the man immediately died: though the
force of this creature's poison does not always, and in all
places, and in all persons operate alike; some die within a few
hours, and others live some days, some to the third day, and some
to the seventh F21:
but after they had looked a great while;
upon the apostle, to observe whether any inflammation or swelling
arose, or death ensued, as they expected: when they had waited
some time, perhaps an hour or two,
and saw no harm come to him;
that he was neither inflamed, nor swelled, nor dead; that it had
no manner of effect upon him, and no evil of punishment was
inflicted on him hereby, from whence they could conclude that he
was guilty of any notorious crime:
they changed their minds, and said that he was a
god:
before they took him to be a murderer, and now they even ascribe
deity to him, as was usual with the Gentiles, when anything
extraordinary was performed by men: so the Lystrians took Paul
for Mercury, and Barnabas for Jupiter, upon the apostle's curing
the cripple, ( Acts 14:11 Acts 14:12 ) ; but what
god the inhabitants of Melita thought him to be, is not certain;
some think Hercules, who was worshipped in this island. The
inhabitants of this island now believe that the apostle expelled
all poison and venom out of it when he was there; and it is
reported, that the children born in this place fear not any
snakes, neither are hurt by anything that is venomous, insomuch
that they will take scorpions, and eat them without danger;
although, in all other parts of the world, those kind of
creatures are most pernicious, and yet do no manner of hurt to
men in this island; yea, it is affirmed, that there is a sort of
earth found here, which kills serpents: as for the eating of
them, the viper itself may be eaten; most authors agree {w}, that
there is no part, humour, or excrement, not even the gall itself,
of a viper, but may be swallowed without much harm; accordingly
the ancients, and, as several authors assure us, the Indians at
this day, both of the east and west, eat them as we do
eels--viper's flesh either roasted or boiled, physicians
unanimously prescribe as an excellent restorative, particularly
in the elephantiasis, incurable consumptions, leprosy