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Show Medical Center research Vaccinations may render snakebites harnib BY PHILIP M. HOWARD JR. Staff Writer A black, directional line woven into the tile floor snakes through the labyrinth of corridors called the third level of the University's Medical Center. Following the black-snake line from the elevator through a series of left and right serpentine turns, reveals the Department of Surgery. Sur-gery. Here the line ends and the office of-fice of perhaps the world's leading authority on snakebites begins. This authority is Dr. Clifford C. Snyder, Chairman of the Division Divi-sion of Plastic Surgery and Professor Pro-fessor of Surgery at the University. vipers and rattlers, moccasins and copperheads. Dr. Snyder says he became interested in-terested in snakes back in 1955 when he was practicing medicine in the southern Florida area. "One day I took my prize pointer, Hank, out for some quail shooting," shoot-ing," he said, "and it was bitten by an Eastern Diamond Back Rattler." Rat-tler." The venom from this snake is vicious, and the dog died shortly, when the routine method of treatment treat-ment did not work (incising the wound and sucking out the poison). poi-son). Dr. Snyder was determined not to let this happen again, and he began research on the prevention and treatment of snakebites. & 1 f ! . -' .'-j spasms, unconsciousess nally death due tn lu the cardiovascuaH He adjft seem to die from the'n or an arm flougl, off if not 2 He says this final Z Oar to gangrene. d"'0ls Neurotoxic bites On the other hand,eu, b'tes may not cauSes ra several hours. Then? Dr-s"rSays,;c: mg sensation develop 'owed by a sense rf or.ntoxication,adtw; sions, uncontrollable L death by paralysis of.: centers that control breafc Rattle snakes found , and throughout fte , United States have an n, and complex combination I two venoms. The main problem is U,, body knows for surehowt spread in the body Snyder's "team" at the n" Center are workinc nn .J. Besides being an authority on snakebites and their treatment, Dr. Snyder is an eminent plastic surgeon. But black-plastic directional direc-tional snakes that can be stepped on, followed and trusted are not Dr. Snyder's concern. His snakes have little-man's faces with pinched mouths and hard, lidless eyes. His snakes have two holes for a nose and a slashing, slash-ing, forked tongue set in a mouth with hypodermic-sharp fangs whose venom can kill a man in a matter of minutes. His snakes are the deadly and mystical king cobras, the blue krait of India, the Australian tiger snake, corals, mambas and the fer de lance; his snakes are puff adders, gaboon Cannot Agree He says doctors cannot agree on a standardized method of snakebite treatment. "You can take five doctors and ask them their opinions on the subject, and perhaps two will agree on the 'correct' 'cor-rect' course to take. However, this isn't the case with these same doctors doc-tors when discussing a surgical procedure for an appendicitis," he said. "Most will agree on a technique." techni-que." He hopes there will in time be worldwide agreement on how to treat snakebites. As it stands now, there are two Dr. Clifford C. Snyder and medical student Gary Hunter prepare to extract venom for research from a western diamondback rattlesnake. lcm. Those on the team t-Dick t-Dick Straight, an Immunol and biologist, who hasi with the basic research muno medicine and venom Hunter, a senior medical i who has worked on He r since he was a sophomot. Jim Glen, a serpentolop the Hogle Zoo, who hand the snakes. The team, for example taken cottonmouth and : snake venom, dried it, : beled" it with the rait iodine-131 isotope. The!? venom was then Injected several research subjects the absorption patten e ways to attack the problem, and this is where Dr. Snyder's research is valuable. A person can either be vaccinated for snake bites as he is for smallpox, whereby an injection injec-tion produces the symptoms of snake venom and the body builds up an immunity; or, an antivenin can be given a victim after the attack. But many antivenins, often called antitoxins, produce adverse side effects because they are derived de-rived from horse serum. Dr. Snyder hopes to produce an antivenin anti-venin from human serum which would not cause any harmful reactions. reac-tions. The human serum as a source for antivenin is a completely new idea. "I think it will probably take another year to develop this new antivenin," he said, "and then perhaps per-haps it can be marketed by our government. "Asia alone has almost 25,000 deaths yearly due to cobra bites," he added. The venoms of the various poisonous poi-sonous snakes can be classified into two general types. They are hemotoxins and neurotoxins, but venoms are not pure, often being -a mixture of both types. Dr. Snyder said, "Hemotoxic bites cause severe burning pain in the area of the bite, followed by swelling, purplish discoloration of the skin, nausea, profuse sweating, venom in the body could S lowed by a Geiger counter, reacts when placed near ar.: ' radioactive. "We wanted to:': J the venom's absorption," s Snyder said, "to see hw vaded the body." Surprisingly, this rest: vealed that the venom sp:- y. the lymphatic vessels no: ce face of the body and fa1 f respiratory center of thf ' p, killing the subject. Ilia' j,e ously been thought that! j( of venom caused death I) su failure. ab ke Survivor of king cobn cat While practicing in f "J. with the University of School of Medicine, ft - ' had the occasion to : world famous snake f William E. Haast, for tacks by venomous si Haast is also the only & vivor of the deadly W- Thjs king cobra. , cer , The book "Cobras y den," written by Hit?; g tells about Mr. Haast s sjngj pentarium and his W' !iho( extracting venoms W f CQml and science. the At one time it ; the cobra venom would p! drug! portant role in the p'!l wi polio. Mi One of man's an . assoc the snake, may work, nored because of ing t men like Dr. ClifWf: ready and his team at antj-rr Medical Center. |