Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 February 1890 — ANNOINTED WITH OIL. [ARTICLE]

ANNOINTED WITH OIL.

A “Hoodoo” Physician and HU Peculiar Ways Sentenced to the Pen. Professor Alfred Brown,of Westchester, Pa., a “professor of medicine,” was on the Ist convicted of practicing medicine without a diploma and using incantations and ‘hoodoo” methods and sentenced to three year’s imprisonment and S7O fine. The plaintiffs were Mrs. Annie Smith and her father, John M. Burnit. Their testimony showed that Brown came to their home and in professing to relieve Mrs. Smith of pain in her foot annointed her body with oil and gave vent to incantations she could not understand. He also prayed while ascending the stairs backward, cooked eggs and killed one of the chickens by tearing off its head with his hands. He claimed, by means of a notched grapevine, to. repel devils, and, strange to say, the woman admitted that by this process he managed to work some kind of a spell upon her which she was powerless to resist. He received from them nearly S2O in money, birds, bickens and eggs.