MadSci Network: Zoology
Query:

Re: Can you draw out the venom from snake bite by the heart of liver a deer?

Date: Thu Feb 10 09:28:32 2000
Posted By: Bruce Lobitz, M.D., Emergency Physician
Area of science: Zoology
ID: 949689388.Zo
Message:

No, I'm afraid "drawing out the venom" doesn't work.

Snake bites are one of those diseases for which we had no effective 
treatment for many years.  As a result, and because snake bites go back to 
the beginning of humans, there have been hundreds of home remedies and 
folk treatments developed/tried.

Added to this, snake bites tend to occur in the wilderness, far away from 
medical care, so the need for an effective first aid intervention is great.

Unfortunately, when these folk remedies are tested scientifically, they 
just don't work.

Some of them would seem to make sense, like sucking the venom out by 
various means.  

It turns out that the best thing you can do when bitten by a poisonous 
snake is get to a doctor.  If there are signs of serious threat from the 
venom, and most of the time there isn't, we can give antivenin, which does 
help stop the tissue damage from the venom.





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