Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 June 1894 — The Cobra’s Poison. [ARTICLE]

The Cobra’s Poison.

Dried and pulverized cobra poison is almost as deadly as when injected by the live cobra, says a writer in McClure’s Magazine. Native doctors use it medicinally in microscopic doses, and have a barbarous method of extracting it. They put a cobra into an earthen pot and drop a banana in after it. They then tie down the lid and heat the pot over the fire. The wretched snake is soon tortured into a rage in its baking prison and bites the banana in its paroxysms. The fruit is afterwards carefully dried, and is then ready for use. It is pronounced under some circumstances to be a wonderfully powerful stimulant, but it is only used in extreme cases, and even then probably does infinitely more harm than good. The same preparation is also said to be employed by leather workers for poisoning other people’s cattle, toith a view to afterwards buying up the hides cheap. This is a form of crime very prevalent in India, and one that the authorities find most difficult to check. For how is the ignorant native cultivator to prove that his plough bullocks have not died of cattle disease? He may complain to the nearest magistrate, and the magistrate mav order the beasts to be examined, but the snake poison leaves no external marks, and is almost impossible to detect chemically. It is not surprising, under these circumstances, that he often decides to accept the loss and not incur the enmity of the cattle poisoners by seeking redress. A fireproof chimney, fifty feet high, has been built of paper in Breslau. It is ii&id to be the only one of the kind.