Mixed With Brandy for Taste, Wallop : Malaysian Has Cure-all: Snake’s Blood

It’s snake blood, not snake oil, but the Bidor Snake Shop says it cures the same aches, arthritis, asthma, acne and mysterious maladies of a sexual nature.

The proprietor, Loi Chee Long, sells the blood of cobras and other poisonous snakes to those who find his shop in this jungle town, 90 miles north of Kuala Lumpur and can pay the fee of up to $120.

Customers buy the snake, then Loi kills it and drains the blood, mixing it with brandy for taste and wallop.

Trade From Tourists

Most of his customers are from Malaysia and Singapore, but some tourists drop in from South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong and there is the occasional Western curiosity-seeker.

“The white man comes, but I think it is all too disgusting to him,” said Loi, 27. “He inquires about the whole thing with great enthusiasm, but when we ask him to have a drink he says ‘Not for me, thanks.”’

As he spoke, Loi had a firm grip on the neck of a cobra longer than he was. Loi is about 5 feet tall and the reptile’s tail thrashed the ground.

The commotion continued while he explained calmly that people drink snake blood because it can cure “rheumatism, body aches and skin diseases, improve the eyesight and increase your sexual prowess, among other things.”

No Poison in Blood

He said a snake’s venom is in its mouth and the blood contains no poison.

Loi explained the procedure like a surgeon conducting class:

“I hold the snake by the neck, find the main blood vessels on the underside, slit them with a sharp knife and gather the blood in the glass.

“Pieces of the snake’s gallbladder are thrown in and an equal amount of brandy is added. The brandy is to give the whole thing a kick as you drink it. Beer and stout won’t give that.

“This drinking cobra blood is nothing new. The Chinese have been doing it for years.”

Plucks Another Snake

With his free hand, he plucked a snake from another cage.

“Am I scared?” he said. “No. I have been catching snakes since I left school at the age of 16.

“At first I used to creep quietly behind the snake, hold its head with a stick and grab it by the neck and dump it into a cage. Now I just grab it by the neck. After so many years, it would be amateurish to use the stick.”

He has never been bitten, Loi said, because he is a professional snake catcher whose rule is: “Your hand grabbing the neck has to be quicker than the cobra’s head to bite you.”

Other professional catchers in Bidor include Wai Kwan Yang, his partner in the shop, and Lim Ah Ha, who was listening to the interview, Loi said.

They Take No Antidote

They take no antidote with them on hunting forays “because the doctor says it is illegal for us to carry such medicine around,” he said, but “we carry a small knife. If I am bitten I would cut the area, drain the blood and rush to a doctor.

“We catch only poisonous snakes like the cobra, black cobra, king cobra and pit vipers because only their blood will have the proper effect.”