In ayurveda, toxicology is called agada tantra. One of the modes of treatments in ayurveda is called daiva vyapashraya chikitsa or the divine treatment making use of mantras and other divine means.
The following is an excerpt from the text called 'Visha Narayaneeyam ' in which kundalini yoga techniques and mantras are used to treat someone bitten by snake.
The adept in treatment visualizes the patient to be in the middle of an island in the ocean. There is a particular way in which the alphabets of sanskrit are arranged in the format of a lotus called lipipankajam. The patient is sitting at the center of this lotus. It is basically visualization. This center of the lotus is filled with nectar and the patient is neck deep in this nectar.
Garuda is the chief deity in treating poison. It is visualized that Garuda breaks open the anahata chakra ( heart lotus of kundalini yoga of 12 petals ) with his beak and enters the patient's body. He displaces the poison in the akasha element in the body of the patient into the vayu element after filling it with nectar. The practitioner chants the Garuda mantra " Om hrsaum samkshipaha ....... " while visualizing.
The Garuda comes out and reenters the body as before this time displacing the poison in the vayu element into the agni element. The rest of the procedure is the same.
The Garuda comes out and reenters the body as before this time displacing the poison in the agni element into the water element. The rest of the procedure is the same.
The Garuda comes out and reenters the body as before this time displacing the poison in the water element into the earth element. The rest of the procedure is the same.
At the end of which the practitioner while chanting the mantra visualizes that the poison now placed in the earth element of the patient's body flows out through the top of his head.
And the text says that the patient will be cured thus.
It is clear that it is not some wayside quack who is doing it.
We, out of our ignorance of our ancient traditions and systems would call this a superstition.