To treat snake bites, the first step is collecting the poison. It is very important to collect poison for the right snake. Sometimes you don't need a poison from exactly the same species of snake; poison from the subfamily is sometimes enough. Pit Vipers (Cottonmouth, Copperhead, Rattlesnakes etc.) is an example of a subfamily of snakes, one antidote produced from one of these will work for the rest of the subfamily. When collecting poison, the snake is forced to bite against a cloth covered glass jar. When the snake's fangs strike the cloth, the poison is released into the glass. This process is called "milking a snake". This poison is then sent to a lab. (Shorter)
In the lab, the poison is injected in small safe quantities into a sheep or a horse so it can produce the antibodies to protect it against the poison. Over the next 2 months, it is injected with increasing doses of poison, until it can resist doses that are even more hazardous than one that could've killed him (Before being adapted to poison). Blood is then extracted from the animal and centrifuged to separate white blood cells from red blood cells. The white blood cells, which contain the antibodies, are then sent to hospitals. But watch out!!! Before treating a victim with the antidote, it is important to test how his body reacts to the antidote. Some people react negatively to antibodies from animals, and even some are killed because of this and not the poison. (East Kentucky Power Cooperative)
East Kentucky Power Cooperative. How Antivenin is Made. n.d. 25 August 2011 <http://www.ekpc.coop/newgreenweb/naturenotes/notes/antivenin.htm>.
Shorter, C.M. Snake Antivenom. n.d. 25 August 2011 <http://www.tigerhomes.org/animal/snake-antivenom.cfm>.
Hi Felipe! I think that your topic is interesting and in the same time I wonder why you chose this topic, but it is useful. Is useful because when I was reading about the snake bite, I remember that when my dad and his friend when camping outside the city an snake bite his friend, hopefully my dad react positively in this situations because if he would not react in this way, his friend would be very sick or even die because the hospital was far away from them.
ReplyDeleteAnd what your write about how scientists create the antidote from the poison; I don’t have an idea of how complicated it is. It takes several months for only one poison, I believe that was something more quickly and the fact that they created the antibody in an animal was incredible new information for me; I was sure that if the antibody is for humans they would taste the antibody in humans.
I hope you continue writing about more topics like this because I considered them interesting. I love your blog, Keep it up!
Yaressi Treviño
Hi Borrego!! Wow, it’s amazing how people or scientists collect poison. I didn’t knew about how antidotes where made, but I remember I once heard about poison collection, though it’s still quite interesting :). But I there’s something worrying me about poison collection, how do we know which snakes are the ones we can take the antidote of? I mean, by sight. But well, I hope there’s no need for me to know it, I really don’t want to pass through that experience. xD
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