Re: Snakes

John Taylor [The Banshee] (rphjt@minyos.xx.rmit.OZ.AU)
Fri, 17 Sep 93 10:28:24 +0000

Here's a LONG extract from "Last Chance to See..." by Douglas Adams & Mark
Carwardine, who were about to set off to Komodo to see the dragons. BTW,
according to Mark, this island has "more poisonous snakes per square metre of
ground... than on any equivalent area on Earth". Maybe Australia's not too
bad afterall...

QUOTE:
There is in Melbourne (where I'm typing from...) a man who probably knows more
about poisonous snakes than anyone else on earth. His name is Dr Struan
Sutherland, and he has devoted his entire life to a study of venom.
"And I'm bored with it," he said when we went along to see him the next
morning. "Can't stand all these poisonous creatures, all these snakes and
insects and fish and things. Stupid things, biting everybody. And then people
expect me to tell them what to do about it. I'll tell them what to do. Don't
get bitten in the first place. That's the answer. I've had enough of it.
Hydroponics, now, *that's* interesting. Talk to you all you like about
hydroponics. Fascinating stuff, growing plants artificially in water, very
interesting technique. We'll need to know all about it if we're going to go to
Mars and places. Where did you say you were going?"
"Komodo"
"Well, don't get bitten, that's all I can say. And don't come running to me
if you do because you won't get here in time and I'll probably be out. Hate
this office, look at it. Full of poisonous animals all over the place. Look
at this tank, it's full of fire ants. Poisonous. Bored silly with them.
Anyway, I got some little cakes in case you were hungry. Would you like some
little cakes? I can't remember where I put them. There's some tea but it's
not very good. Sit down for heavens sake.
"So you're going to Komodo. Well, I don't know why you want to do that,
but I suppose you have your reasons. There are fifteen different types of
snakes on Komodo, and half of them are posionous. The only potentially deadly
ones are the Russell's viper, the bamboo viper and the Indian cobra.
"The Indian cobra is the fifteenth deadliest snake in the world, and all the
other fourteen are *here in Australia*. That's why it's so hard for me to
find time to get on with my hydroponics, with all these snakes all over the
place.
"And spiders. The most poisonous spider is the Sydney funnelweb which bites
about five hundred people a year. A lot of them used to die, so I had to
develop an antidote to stop people bothering me with it all the time. Took us
years. Then we developed this snake bite detector kit. Not that you need a
kit to tell you when you've been bitten by a snake, you usually know, but the
kit is something that will detect what you've been bitten by so you can treat
it properly.
"Would you like to see a kit? I've got a couple here in the venom fridge.
Let's have a look. Ah look, the cakes are in here too. Quick, have one while
they're still fresh. Fairy cakes, I baked 'em myself."
He handed round the snake bite detector kits and the rock hard fairy cakes
and retreated back to his desk, where he beamed at us cheerfully from behind
his curly beard and bow tie. We admired the kits more than the cakes, and
asked him how many of the snakes he had been bitten by himself.
"None of 'em," he said. "Another area of expertise I've developed is that
of getting other people to handle the dangerous animals. Won't do it myself.
Don't want to get bitten, do I? You know what it says in my entry in *Who's
Who*? "Hobbies: gardening - with gloves; fishing - with boots; travelling -
with care." That's the answer. Oh, and wear baggy trousers. When a snake
strikes it starts to inject venom as soon as it hits something. If you've got
baggy trousers most of the venom will just get squirted down the inside of your
trousers which is better than it being squirted down the inside of your leg.
You're not eating your cakes. Come on, get them down you, there's plenty more
in the fridge."
We asked, tentatively, if we could perhaps take a snake bite detector kit
with us to Komodo.
"Course you can, course you can. Take as many as you like. Won't do you
a blind bit of good because they're only for Australian snakes."
"So what do we do if we get bitten by something deadly, then?" I asked.
He blinked at me as if I were stupid.
"Well what do you think you do?" he said. "You die of course. That's what
deadly means."
"But what about cutting open the wound and sucking out the poison?" I asked.
"Rather you than me," he said. "I wouldn't want a mouthful of poison. All
the blood vessels beneath the tongue are very close to the surface so the
poison goes straight into the bloodstream. That's assuming you could get the
poison out, which you probably couldn't. And in a place like Komodo it means
you'd quickly have a seriously infected wound to contend with as well as a leg
full of poison. Septicemia, gangrene, you name it. It'll kill you."
"What about a tourniquet?"
"Fine if you don't mind having your leg off afterwards. You'd have to
because it would be dead. And if you can find anyone in that part of Indonesia
who you'd trust to take off your leg then you're a braver man than me. No,
I'll tell you: the only thing you can do is apply a pressure bandage direct to
the wound and wrap the whole leg up tightly, but not too tightly. Slow the
blood flow but don't cut it off or you'll lose the leg. Keep the leg, or
whatever bit of you it is you've been bitten in, lower than your heart and
your head. Keep very, very still, breathe slowly and get to a doctor
*immediately*. If you're on Komodo that means a couple of days, by which time
you'll be well dead.
"The only answer, and I mean it quite seriously, is *don't get bitten*.
There's no reason why you should. Any of the snakes there will get out of your
way well before you even see them. You don't really need to worry about the
snakes if you're careful. No, the things you really need to worry about are
the marine creatures."
"What?"
"Scorpian fish, stonefish, sea snakes. Much more poisonous than anything
on land. Get stung by a stonefish and the pain alone can kill you. People
drown themselves just to stop the pain."
"Where are all these things?"
"Oh, just in the sea. Tons of them. I wouldn't go near it if I were you.
Full of poisonous animals. Hate them."
"Is there anything you do like?"
"Hydroponics"
"No, I mean is there any venomous creature you're particularly fond of?"
He looked out of the window for a moment.
"There was," he said, "but she left me."

UNQUOTE.

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| John Taylor [The Banshee] | Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology |
| rphjt@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au | Department of Applied Physics |
| MOKING IS A HEALTH HAZARD. | Melbourne, Victoria, AUSTRALIA |
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