WORLD ACHIEVEMENT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 November 1939, Page 6

WORLD ACHIEVEMENT

SNAKE-BITE FOR HEALTH. Wonders never cease and surprises are for ever taking us by storm. Who, for example, would dream of having a good word to say for a poisonous snake? Who would wish to be bitten by such a creature? Yet a few years ago a Spanish prince died because at that time no one had discovered the amazing truth that a serpent’s poison might save his life. A snake’s poison may kill or cure. One of the wonderful things about the body is its great power of recovery from injury, and surgeons by the use of antiseptic and grafting have made Nature’s healing even more effective. The blood which carries nourishment to every quarter of our bodies also carries healing factors in its stream. We can see them at work every time we cut our finger. The bleeding stops in a few minutes because the blood has clotted or coagulated. There are some men whose bodies leek this power of blood coagulation, and only quite recently it was impossible to staunch the flow of blood through a wound. The prince of the royal house of Spain died from the lack of blood as some of his ancestors had died, for the disease is hereditary, strangely enough attacking males only. Scientists have long been endeavouring to find a cure for this terrible though rare disease, and now they have found it. curiously enough issuing from the fangs of a poisonous snake. The venom from this snake injected into the blood of a sufferer from the disease will cause the blood issuing from an injury to coagulate faster than Nature effects it in man enjoying normal health.

The snake is made to bite on a piece of silk, and the venom is allowed to dry up, as it preserves its peculiar properties in a dry state better than in its original liquid form.