Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 October 1895 — VIOLETS CURE SNAKEBITE, [ARTICLE]

VIOLETS CURE SNAKEBITE,

And Rattlers' Oil Declared a Remedy for Deafness. Everybody in the upper part of New Jersey has heard of Richard Cook, the snakscharmer. He has studied the habits, peculiarities and characteristics es snakes until they are as familiar to him as the multiplication table. Hisjhome is at the foot of a mountain range about two and a half miles southwest of Glenwood and is contiguous to a number of snake dens in which are pilots and blacksnakes, and rattlesnakes are frequently seen sunning themselves upon the rocky slope. Sometimes, when Mr. Cook has leisure, he climbs up to the dens above mentioned and by some hocuspocus (he declines to tell how) he entices the reptiles from their aensand captures them alive,and the next day he puts a big boxful of the writhing creatures on exhibition in some nearby town. Many a dollar has he picked up by this means. Last year was an unusually good season, and he captured 180 pilots and 75 or 80 huge blacksnakes, one of which measured 11 feet It looks more like a boa constrictor from South America than a common Jersey blacksnnke. and was as vicious and cunning as he was big. He would sometimes viciously encircle the body of the exhibitor until you could almost hear the bones crack. This season Mr. Cook is not devoting much time to pilots or blacksnakes, but has succeeded in capturing four large rattlers, from which he extracted several ounces of oil, which found a ready sale at $3 50 an ounce. He says that there is a growing demand for rattlesnake Oil. It is said to be a swift and sure cure for deafness, and, as a balm or lubricator for sore muscles or stiffened joints, is far ahead of chloroform liniment or any other remedy known to materia medico. In regard to the poison injected by the bite of a rattlesnake, Mr. Cook said it was far more deadly in its effects than that, of a pilot and required prompt attention. He had a painful but not serious experience with each, as his scarred hands testify. When bitten he never thinks of consulting a doctor or drinking whiskey, but gathers a handful of blue violet leaves and stems and, crushing them, makes a poultice which he applies not on the wound but on the swelling around it. Upon the bitten part he applies equal parts of salt and indigo. This application is renewed every half hour. Three applications are generally sufficient to effect a cure. Mr. Cook says he has observed that air snakes lie dormant until blue violets appear In the spring and that they all disappear after the leaves of whlta ash trees begin to fall in autumn; and so great is their antipathy to ash bark or leaves that they will recoil from them as from fire.