Posted on 07/12/2012 5:32:41 PM PDT by navysealdad
Basically, a single drop of this venom (from a Russell's viper) is dripped onto a petri dish of blood, and in seconds the blood clots into a thick chunk of solid matter. (VIDEO)
(Excerpt) Read more at uvideo100.com ...
Interesting. It looks like it could have some medical uses. After dilution, of course.
Russell’s viper venom is highly hemotoxic. The venom in dilute form is used to detect lupus anticoagulant.
Lupus! Is it lupus?
I remember a frog from ST-2 long ago named “Snake” Olzweski. (Sp?) Got the moniker after getting bit by a rattler on the arm. Not a pretty picture. At all.
I got bitten on the thumb by one of those a few years ago. Spent 5 days in the hospital.
I was more worried about side affects from the anti-venom than the bite itself, but everything worked out okay except for some permanent numbness in the thumb.
>> some permanent numbness in the thumb
From bite lacerations or poison?
Different snake venoms do different things. Some go straight to the heart and cause cardiac arrest. Others attack the nervous system. Some attack the blood. There are probably others that do other things
So that’s how they make blood pudding.
Hemophilia?
>> some permanent numbness in the thumb
>From bite lacerations or poison?
I didn’t read the article, so don’t know if it goes into this, but the venom destroys tissue. So the real danger is infection where the venom is injected (could be deep!) leading to gangrene. That’s why they kept me in the hospital more than a day - to monitor that. So the numbness is due to that destroyed tissue. The lacerations themselves were fairly minor.
So it was the venom. Scary stuff.
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