Word: venomous
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Fifth Day. The Anglo-French Canberras, Venom Mark 45 and Corsairs finished the destruction of the Egyptian air force on the ground, then turned to strafing and bombing Egyptian motor convoys and strategic points which might hinder the landing in the Canal Zone. In frustration, the Egyptians sank seven blockships at various points in the Suez Canal (they can later be dynamited out of the way). Bombers picked out the transmitter of the Cairo radio. (A standby transmitter was back on the air in an hour, however...
Milking rattlesnakes of their venom is relatively easy. During his 35 years as consulting curator of reptiles at the San Diego Zoo, Klauber milked 5,171 of them by opening their mouths with a metal claw, hooking their fangs over the edge of a cup and pressing out the contents of their poison glands. The venom, he says, is almost odorless. Its taste is first astringent, then turns sweetish. It makes the lips tingle a little...
Ethereal Delights. Rattlesnake venom, says Klauber, has, at various times, been considered a cure for epilepsy, bronchitis, pneumonia, neuralgia, lumbago, sciatica, cholera, yellow fever, leprosy and elephantiasis. Pills made out of the poison glands ground up and mixed with cheese were once prescribed for palsy and typhus; they also give a feeling of "ethereal delights." Rattlesnake oil was once a popular remedy, too, but both venom and oil have now fallen out of medical favor. The chief modern use for the venom is to immunize horses so their serum can be used to cure rattlesnake bites...
...fangs in a small, warm animal, it does not try to hold it. The animal runs a few feet or yards until the poison brings it down. Then the snake follows by scent, flicking its delicate tongue, and starts the slow business of swallowing the meal. The injected venom contains a substance that starts the digestive process before the animal reaches the snake's stomach...
Popular remedies for rattlesnake bite are as numerous as the diseases that venom was once supposed to cure. Klauber lists onions, garlic, chewed tobacco, ammonia, kerosene, gunpowder, nitric acid, lye, quicklime, and freshly killed chickens, split and applied to the wound. All such nostrums are useless, as is the classic remedy, whisky, which Klauber thinks has killed many snakebite victims who would have recovered if left untreated. The only effective drug is antivenin, which must be used with care. Best first-aid treatment is a ligature or tourniquet to isolate the bitten part of the body. The wound should...