In his book Last Chance to See, Douglas Adams talks about how leery he was of going to visit the island of Komodo (home of the Komodo Dragon) because it has "more venomous snakes per square yard than anywhere else in the world". He and his companions go to visit a renowned expert of poisonous animals for some useful advice. It amounts to "Don't get bitten". The man explains that the snakes will avoid you if you don't provoke them, and that sucking the poison out would probably not get most of it, would drastically increase the chances of infection, and would result in the sucker having a mouth full of poison (though this last one isn't so bad, as snake venom has a high molecular weight and generally can't be absorbed through the mouth). He also dismisses the usefulness of a tourniquet, claiming you'd have to have the limb removed, and if you can find a doctor in that part of Indonesia you'd be willing to have cut off your limb, well, good luck. The only viable solution is to apply a pressure bandage, keep the area elevated but lower than the heart, and get medical attention immediately. But since you're on the island of Komodo, "immediately" probably means a few days, so you're dead. So to repeat: Don't get bitten.
Subverted in Douglas Adams' Last Chance To See - the team visits the world's foremost expert on snake toxins and ask him precisely this. His response amounts to: "In my professional opinion: don't get bitten!" He also points out that a) you are unlikely to actually get much of the poison out, b) you will then have a mouth full of poison (although due to the high molecular weight of snake venom, it probably won't be absorbed by your mouth), and c) you will mostly likely infect the wound terribly in the process, and in that part of the world (Indonesia), that is a bad idea.
The first one was in Real Life, the second is still in Literature (because it's a book). Should the RL one be merged with the Literature one, or should the Literature example be left as-is? (It's a book, even a non-fiction one.)
Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving. -Terry Pratchett
The first one was in Real Life, the second is still in Literature (because it's a book). Should the RL one be merged with the Literature one, or should the Literature example be left as-is? (It's a book, even a non-fiction one.)
Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving. -Terry Pratchett