Data export. Recent changes. Can you actually drink that steaming mug of snake venom? The science comes down to the difference between poisons and venoms, and to the oral toxicity of the venom itself.
Hosted by: Stefan Chin SciShow has a spinoff podcast! It's called SciShow Tangents. Thanks to CuriosityStream for supporting this episode of SciShow. Go to CuriosityStream. The science pedants out there are right when they point out that venoms and poisons differ — namely, by the route of administration. But venoms get into you via wounds, like a snake bite, while poisons are either inhaled, swallowed, or absorbed through the skin.
And yes, this difference matters when it comes to how toxins affect you! So, venoms often contain big, somewhat delicate molecules that can be inactivated or destroyed by your digestive juices.
And oral toxicities tend to be lower than injected ones. For instance, the venom of the blue-ringed octopus contains the potent paralytic tetrodotoxin, which is roughly 40 times less toxic when swallowed than when injected.
So if you did somehow manage to obtain a shot glass full of venom from these golf ball-sized octopuses, you definitely wouldn't want to drink it. For instance, in a study published in , rats that ingested cobra venom ended up with damage to their livers reminiscent of what happens after a regular bite.
According to patient, during these 3—4 weeks, he did not have any craving for alcohol and opioids and did not consume the same. His smoking continued in the similar manner. After 3—4 weeks, the sense of well-being started to decline, he started to remain irritable, lethargic, and started having craving for drugs. Following this, he again went for a snake bite. He again had the similar experience lasting for 3—4 weeks. After this, he started indulging in the snake bite every 3—4 weeks, so as to experience the sense of well-being and high associated with the snake bite.
Over the period, his use of opioids and alcohol reduced and most of use of these would be seen after 1—2 weeks of snake bite. On exploration, patient further disclosed that subjecting self to snake bite was common in his ethnic community Northwestern part of Rajasthan, India , either as a substitute to other substances of abuse, or is used concomitantly with other substances to experience the feeling of ecstasy.
According to the patient, often snake charmers give this kind of bite only to those people who are known to them and best to his knowledge no person had lost his their life after the snake bite. At the time of presentation, he had been using puppy husk regularly, with the last intake a day before the presentation.
He was detoxified using clonidine, analgesics, and benzodiazepines. Motivational enhancement therapy and relapse prevention counseling was done. He was explained about the risks associated with snake bite and potential life-threatening consequences. He remained in follow-up for the next 3 months, during which he was free of all the substances and also did not indulge in any snake bite. There are few case reports in the literature about snake venom use.
A thorough PubMed search and searching of cross references yielded four reports of use of snake venom for recreational purposes. Most of these cases have been described in patients using opioids[ 1 , 4 , 6 ] as was seen in our patient too.
The snakes used for such bites have been identified as cobra, krait, or green-colored snakes seen on the trees. One of the patients, in a previous report described snake-dens, where different types of snakes are graded as mild, moderate, and severe form, based on the type of intoxication provided.
The bites have been reported to be taken on the feet or tongue. However, in terms of agreeableness and conscientiousness, one of the patients scored high and other scored low.
The symptoms reported by patients in different case reports suggest the neurotoxin nature of these snake bites. It is known that some of the neurotoxins result in an analgesia, which is independent of the centrally mediated opiate-independent analgesia. Long-form of alpha-neurotoxin found in cobra venom is known to act on nicotinic acetyl choline receptors nAChRs.
However, this has not been precisely evaluated. The review of literature suggests that occasional patients use snake venom as a substitute or additional agent to get high.
Our case adds to this limited literature. Fewer than one in 37, people are bitten by venomous snakes in the U. Did you know that you are nine times more likely to die from being struck by lightning than to die of venomous snakebite?
The graph below compares deaths from venomous snakebites to some leading causes of death, lightning strikes and other animal related deaths. Poisons are substances that are toxic cause harm if swallowed or inhaled. Venoms are generally not toxic if swallowed, and must be injected under the skin by snakes, spiders, etc.
However, we do NOT recommend drinking venom! The venom gland is a modified salivary gland, and is located just behind and below the eye. The size of the venom gland depends on the size of the snake - this image shows the approximate size of the venom gland in relation to the skull of this Timber Rattlesnake Crotalus horridus. In a study comparing snake venoms, researchers milked the largest amount of venom from an Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake Crotalus adamanteus --more than from any other species they studied.
A comparative study found that the snake venom that is most toxic to mice of the species tested is that of the Inland Taipan Oxyuranus microlepidotus , found in Australia. The most toxic venom of U. It is important to note that these venoms were only tested on mice. While these tests provide valuable ecological information about venomous snakes that eat mice and other small mammals, it may not accurately reflect how toxic they are to humans.
The world's deadliest snake is probably the Saw-scaled Viper Echis carinatus , because it causes the most documented deaths. However, many of these deaths are likely due to lack of medical care.
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