Correspondence to: Professor J B Harris, School of Neurology, Neurobiology and Psychiatry, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle upon Tyne NE2 4HH, UK; [email protected] _________________________ T he vast majority of us experience trivial and sometimes inconvenient bites and stings, but we never imagine that the next bite or sting might precipitate a medical emergency. Similarly, we ...

Medically important venomous snakes in Latin America belong to the genus Bothrops, Crotalus, Lachesis and Micrurus. The Bothrops genus is responsible for the majority of accidents. The WHO globally estimates 2,500,000 poisonous snakebites and 125,000 deaths annually. In its last report in 2001, the Brazilian Ministry of Health accounted 359 deaths due to snakebites, of which the Bothrops genus ...

at last coming away from the drums perfectly clear. Investigations have shown that while Bandrowski's base is perfectly harmless, and can be eaten in large doses by experimental animals with impunity, the parent substance, ursol, is very poisonous and capable of producing severe inflammation of the skin, even in minute doses, in susceptible persons. When a lady develops a severe rash on her nec...

Although they may only make up a small portion of the cases presented to veterinarians, poisoning cases often require special effort. When food animals are exposed to poisonous weeds, a devastating case with large morbidity and mortality may ensue. The concern is for the herd and economics as much as treatment of the individual animal. In addition, producers and veterinarians must address food ...

THE ACCEPTED theory of bubonic plague among medieval physicians is to be found in the tracts offering defences both prophylactic and therapeutic against plague composed in the years after the Black Death of 1348.1 There it was stated that the abscesses of plague (apostemata, now called buboes) were the sites of poisonous discharges emitted from the heart, liver and brain, after these had been a...