Biology Reference
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shoot a King Cobra that attacked him. Mambas don't give you that option. Once, a visiting
medical student woke me up at about 2 am because one of my snakes had escaped and was in
her bedroom. I had known her for a long time and she had been a bit like a big sister to me. She
realized it was one of mine and calmly brought me to catch it. Wild animals and creepy
crawlies would show up in the most unusual places. Later when I spent a medical student
rotation at Shongwe, and also McCord's in Durban, a sterile pack at Shongwe was opened up
for a minor operation and there was a scorpion in the pack. How on earth it got into it we
could never figure out, but such was the environment. There have been estimates that 100,000
people in all of Africa die from snakebites each year, 20,000 from the Bushveld endemic
mambas. But, snakes may also save people. Pit viper venom is used to dissolve clots for artery
blockages and was the incentive for developing one of the most important cardiovascular
medications (Angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors, ACE inhibitors; the first in the class
was captopril and has saved thousands of heart failure patients lives but Brazil accused the
company to biopiracy), green mamba venom may help control hypertension and protect
kidneys, black mamba venom may inhibit cancer cell from spreading, and other venoms have
antibiotic effects on multiple serious life threatening, flesh eating and gas gangrene bacteria
like Staphylococcus, Pseudomonas, Escherichia coli, Bacteroides, and Clostridium specie of
bacteria. They may also have unique pain killing properties, for example tarantula venom has
pain killing properties and it is likely that snake venoms will be found to have new therapeutic
advantages. Of interest mamba snake bite victims will sometimes relate that the bite does not
hurt but felt like “it brushed against me” suggesting that their venom has a pain killer, apart
from the fine, sharp toothed fangs, smaller than the needles that are used in surgery for applying
local anesthetic. Snake venoms are among the most complex proteins and peptides but why is
that proteins and amino acids in animals tend to have left handed conformations (L isomers)
and nucleotide sugars are right handed (D isomer) even Watson and Crick wondered about this
quandary?
Psychologically, killing snakes I could not capture with a rifle I found easy to rationalize. I
was killing “them” evil snakes that would kill “us” if left uncontrolled. This is perhaps why I
find the smile of a black or green mamba very evil; you may come to a different conclusion
based on the snakes big round doey eyes and friendly smile.
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