FOX, THE SNAKE FIGHTER.

Colonist, Volume LVI, Issue 13420, 18 March 1914, Page 2

FOX, THE SNAKE FIGHTER.

With the death of "Doctor" Fox, Australia's great snake-fighter, a remarkable personality has passed-away. The, "Age" describes him as, a"pic-' turesque-Jooking man, tall and slim, with long hair and deep, hungry-look-ing ©yes, dressed in loose clothes, with, a broad ©nake-skin belt jound his waist." He lived at Botany, near Sydney, with his little daughter and his snakes. Of these ho had hundreds, ail of the most deadly kind, which he kept,in a hole about five feet deep in his yard. He had no fear of these venomous pets, either for himself «r for others, for he possessed a sure antidote against snake-bit© During his life he doctored at least 200 dangerous bites on his own person. That a bite one day rjroved fatal was no fault of the antidote. This was obtained from the snakes themselves by "milking." The "Doctor" would seize his prisoners one by one about the middle of the back, and hold them just out of striking distance from his face. The creature would hiss and. dart its tongue back and forth viciously Fox would then take with his disengaged hand a small concave £>lass something like a watchglass, covered with a thin sheet of rubber, which he would push in the snake's mouth. The reptile would bito angrily on the glass through the rubber, leaving inside two drops of transparent liquid. This was the way "Doctor" Fox did his dairying, the simple but, to somo people, undesirable way in which he gained his livelihood. -The antidote lie bottled and sold to universities for research purposes. "Doctor" Fox was a wellknown figure at Botany, and every Sunday it was his custom to give a lecture to pickuickers near the blacks' camp at La Perouse. Sometimes a snake with which he was''demonstrating would succeed in burying its fangs in his flesh. The "Doctor" would proceed calmly with his discourse for five of six minutes, and would then ask his audience to excuse him a moment while he took the precaution of applying a little of his "snake's milk" to the wound. Recently Dr. Fox went to India to try conclusions with the deadly cobra. Some of his friends tried to disuade him urging that the remedy which was effective in the case of Australian snakes might prove unavailing against the snakes of another country. The details of his death state that he was bitten while handling a snake, and according to his custom at once applied his remedy to the punctures. One puncture, however, escaped his notice, and when ho"wns taken ill it was too 4ate to use the antidote. .