From Toxins To Treatments

摘要

If Kathleen Grego ever needs a reminder of the power of a snake's venom, she only has to look at her left thumb. A few years ago, the head of the herpetol-ogy department at the Instituto Butantan here was bitten by a jararacussu, a venomous pit viper. One of the snake's fangs sliced straight through her fingernail and discharged its deadly venom into her flesh. Grego was taken to the hospital down the road and immediately received antivenom, but her fingernail still bears a vertical scar and the top of her thumb looks like it has caved in on one side, where the toxins digested muscle and other tissue.