Posted by:
oldherper
at Tue May 13 07:39:45 2003 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by oldherper ]
The people who write these articles are just that...writers. They don't know from neurotoxin, cardiotoxin, hemotoxin or kool-aid. They interview doctors and nurses and family members and police and look for buzzwords, then just sort of throw them together.
What you have to remember in all of this is that all snake venoms are a cocktail of different kinds of toxins. Dendroaspis is, of course, predominately neurotoxin. It also contains a cardiotoxin, which raises the heart rate to circulate the venom more quickly. I would think that the amount of hemotoxin in Dendroaspis venom would be small enough to be inconsequential, but swelling may occur without necrosis because of the tissue reaction local to the bite related to trying to produce antigens. However, a dendroaspis bite would almost certainly be very quickly fatal in a toddler, especially without immediate administration of Antivenin. If you haven't positively (or nearly positively) identified the offending species, which Antivenin do you use? No doctor in his right mind is going to administer Dendroaspis Antivenin to a toddler when it isn't known if she was bitten by a Mamba or some other species. Same with any species of Cobra. In a toddler, an untreated cobra bite would likely produce a fairly rapid fatality. The symptoms of a Mamba bite are marked and dramatic and progress rapidly, including drooping eyelids, numbness of lips and extremeties, paralysis of facial muscles, disorientation, loss of vision, loss of speech ability, dramatic changes in heart rate, paralysis of the diaphram, and finally, death. This all can occur in an adult in as little as 20 to 30 minutes or as much as 2 hours. In a toddler, the timeframes would be much more compressed. Mambas (from what I know) rarely, if ever, dry-bite.
The conclusion I would draw from all of this is that she was bitten by some other species, and was not in enough respiratory distress to be immediately concerned about death. No mention was really made if she was sleeping in an elevated bed or a bed on the floor or ground. There are numerous species of small vipers and elapids whose bite is much less serious than Dendroaspis or Naja species, and will cause local swelling and necrosis. In these other snakes, the neurotoxic effects of the venom can be exaggerated in a small child.
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RE: ZA Press: Toddler in risk of loosing hand after snakebite - oldherper, Tue May 13 07:39:45 2003