Cheltenham Day Three: Complex and Contradictory Snakes

Dear All,

Today I was expecting talks on food but was most inspired by the talk ‘Snake Bites’. The talk was introduced by Mark Maslin (UCL Department of Geography) and in doing so he let it be known that he had helped to choose the speaker, David Warrell.

‘Snake Bites’ was paradoxical in nature as the snake is full of contradictions. It is on the one hand a beautiful creature admired and even venerated by some and yet causes a strong and sometimes irrational fear in others.

The venom of snakes is also a paradox. On the one hand if injected into you by the snake it can cause a reduction in blood pressure, bleeding, gangrene, kidney failure, breathing paralysis and death. However, the venom has also provided lead molecules that have allowed the discovery of new drugs for treating blood pressure and severe heart failure. The anti-clotting and blood pressure effects of the molecules are thus being used for a therapeutic rather than life threatening effect.

Snakebites do cause many deaths each year, although exact numbers are hard to determine, as many victims never make it to hospital so a definite diagnosis is not made. It is estimated that 85,000 deaths a year occur worldwide from snakebites. 46,000 of these occur in India and snakebite accounts for four per cent of all child deaths in India.

To treat snake bites effectively it is very important to get the patient to hospital as quickly as possible and then to treat the effects of the snake bite, such as treating the kidney failure with dialysis. It is current policy to not treat with anti-venom until it is clear that the patient is severely venomated. This caused some consternation from the audience but was defended by David Warrell as the anti-venom can cause severe allergic reactions in the patient and may kill the patient itself so you have to balance potential benefit with potential risk.

He finished with the final paradoxical story of the Burmese rice farmer. The farmers move through their snake infested paddy fields with bare hands and feet. In doing so they risk being bitten by the snakes and often are. Yet without the snakes the mice and rats that also infest the paddy fields would be out of control and there would not be a rice harvest. The snake is the friend and enemy of the rice farmer.

Until tomorrow with hopefully further contradictions.

Your Computational Chemist