I cut a piece of bark off and rubbed it on my shoulder and waited. Perhaps I thought that the action would be as instantaneous as the, “in your mouth” treatment dad used to minister to me. After deciding it wasn’t going to do any good I went back to work. I came to recognize about 30 minutes later my shoulder wasn’t hurting anymore and I had full use of it. Before bedtime I had to repeat the treatment. Since that day I have not lost another night of sleep from bursitis. It does wonders for hurting knees, ankles and other joints; my limberness on the dance floor is amazing. Cuts, scrapes, burns, insect bites and fever blisters; it does wonders too. I have come to rely on it for many things and call it my Snake Oil. My friends and neighbors wanted my Snake Oil; but I was killing my prickly ash tree.After much research I found the healing chemical in prickly ash is Xanthoxylum. I have also discovered a way to extract the chemical from the plant. You can have the Snake Oil and the research done on Xanthoxylum between 1829 and 1893; but, I keep the little secret of how I extract it from the plant.