Venom: Fear, Fascination and Discovery

This work relates to occasions when islanders were stung on the reef by Stone Fish, a deadly and venomous creature, and the medicines available to manage pain and cure the wound. A medicine is derived from the Del Pui tree, a plant that grows in certain shorelines. It is picked and then boiled on hot coals in Alups [shell containers]. Once cooked, the leaves are removed and allowed to dry, leaving syrupy green juices in the Alup. The juices are used to then soak the bite and relieve pain. In the image, one of the victim's legs is depicted going into the Stone Fish's mouth, indicating that the inside of the fish itself also holds a key to a cure. The fish contains its own antidote for stings, and islanders are aware that within the liver of the fish another green substance, known as 'ILL', can be used to fix the pain. On the bottom of the image, the wavy lines indicate a rising tide, and further represent the element of time it takes to address a sting before it is too late. If the sting is not treated immediately, it is said that as the tide rises through the night, so will the levels of pain. Islanders know that that the poison lasts for roughly the same time as a tide cycle, and as the tide turns and begins to go down, the pain will also begin to subside.

The box jellyfish is always venomous. It is delicate and vulnerable to hawksbill turtle and other predators. Box jellyfish come down into the mangroves in the estuary with the westerly trade winds when the water is warm, and this is the most dangerous time because their tentacles are dangling down trying to catch fish or shrimp, and sometimes we get stung by these tentacles. When we draw a box jellyfish as Rickisha has done, the colours on the tentacles represent the venom. The box jellyfish go back to the open ocean (Indian-Pacific) with the easterly trade winds. Our treatment: With a handful of sand, run it along the part of the body that has the tentacles on it. This sand will protect your finger as you remove the tentacles. You use cold saltwater to wash the wound and kill the bacteria in the wound. Next, you need to make a bit of a fire with sticks. Heat the leaf on the fire and then place a leaf from the morning glory vine on the wound with one hand in the shape of a cup pressed over the leaf. You will feel the warmth from the leaf and this helps with the pain. You keep doing this with the morning glory leaf until the pain goes. To get rid of the scar, you rub dugong oil gently into the scar. Sometimes you need to heat this oil to rub on bad scars.

Heleana Wauchope-Gulwa

Throughout the nineteenth century, the Australian colonists learned little about local animals. In the early decades, the predominant question was whether indigenous fauna made for good eating. As European occupation expanded through pastoralism, agriculture and squatting, new concerns emerged: dingoes and thylacines were blamed for killing sheep, while kangaroos competed for grasslands. Such knowledge circulated through neighbourly exchanges, frequent movement of settlers between colonies, in newspapers and via advice books for ‘new chums’. In the cities, natural history museums became enormously popular through the second half of the century. Here, literate colonists learned the common name, taxonomic classification and distribution of indigenous animals via small cards accompanying specimens. Rarely, however, were the habits or habitats of Australian species presented systematically. In the 1870s, circumstances began changing. Compulsory primary schooling was introduced across most of the colonies, while railways and later tramways provided common travel networks for ever-expanding urban populations. With medical interest in snakebite peaking over the same decade—especially in Victoria—a new phenomenon appeared: a poster illustrating the ‘Dangerous snakes of Victoria’. Authored by Frederick McCoy, Director of the National Museum of Victoria and Professor of Natural History at Melbourne University, this bill sketched out the visual characteristics of the five serpents widely regarded as life-threatening. Pinned up in schoolrooms, railway stops and police stations across the colony, it echoed the era’s ‘wanted’ posters targeted at capturing bushrangers such as Ned Kelly. The analogy was clear: these reptiles must be avoided or executed as purveyors of violent death. McCoy’s pioneering poster proved both popular and persistent, with a new edition issued in the 1890s. By then, other publishers were working with local education departments to prepare rival charts. By Federation, nature study—including snake identification and snakebite treatment—had become a standard part of every Australian child’s education.

Dr Peter Hobbins

This eight part illustration from The Illustrated Australian News reveals the fascination and fear that the general public had in the 1880s towards snakes. Every day scenes of life; camping, relaxing with friends and sleeping are rudely interrupted by the hostile presence of reptiles. Even pets are not safe as one image is titled ‘Pets in danger’ as a snake attempts to reach a bird in a cage. Even though death by snake bite was not a common cause of death in colonial Australia, the snake itself seemed to represent the dangers of the Australian bush and the newly arrived migrants sense of insecurity in their new land. The article accompanying the illustrations reflects this view. ‘Our artist has produced a number of sketches on the subject of snakes, illustrating in a humorous way the dangers to which life in the bush is subjected through the prevalence of these reptiles. In one place a flood has occurred on the plains, and a party of snakes have sought refuge upon a dry sand bank. This retreat they are evidently intent upon defending against all comers, and their warlike position indicates a most inhospitable welcome to the boat which is hovering near. Another sketch represents camping out; an experience familiar to most bushmen; a large fire is burning cheerily, and the bushmen have settled down to the enjoyment of the evening. Their conversation is, however, rudely: interrupted by the sudden appearance of a snake, which has hitherto remained ensconced in one of the burning logs. Finding his quarters uncomfortably warm, he determines upon a retreat, and appears on the scene to the apparent astonishment and terror of the bushmen. Hardly less alarming is the incident presented in another sketch where a number of men are seated around a room enjoying an evening smoke, when their attention is directed to the movements of a kitten which is playing with something on the floor. A closer inspection discloses the fact that the kitten's playfellow is a large black snake, which has been introduced by the kitten in the character of a most unwelcome guest.’

Dr Jacqueline Healy

May Gibbs (1877–1960) followed in the footsteps of Beatrix Potter in combining art and science to create an environmentally progressive children’s literature. Gibbs migrated with her family from England to Western Australia at aged four. She spent several years absorbing the sounds, scenes and scents of ‘the bush’ before settling in Perth. It was the 1918 publication of her iconic Snugglepot and Cuddlepie that brought her lasting fame. The consolidated Complete adventures, first published in 1940, has never been out of print. The artwork featured here is from that first book that followed the gumnut babies on their quest to find safety from the perils of the wild. It combines naturalistic figures, such as the righteous snake-eating Mrs Kookaburra, with heroic events such as the battles against the evil Banksia men and the predatory Mrs [‘furious’] Snake. Nevertheless Gibbs’ uniquely Australian mythology was far from the first work of morally laden popular literature that dealt with the hazards of venomous creatures. Indeed snakes were common characters in Australian children’s, and even adult, fiction from the 1870s (rarely as the good guys!). One such story that, in contrast to the gumnut babies, was almost entirely focused on the travails of a snake family, with a distinctly kind-hearted Mrs Snake, was ‘The conceited snake’ by English born colonial artist Cyrus Mason (1829–1915). This tale of juvenile hubris featured in The Australian Christmas story book for 1871. Consistent with the vibrant state of ‘citizen science’ in that era, its climactic scene was one of ‘town hall’ vivisection and antidote testing manifest as mortal combat between snake and cat (guess who wins). Presenting a third narrative pathway, the very re-inventor of Australian realism, Henry Lawson (1867–1922), placed the snake directly as a fellow traveller in the harshness of the outback within his desolate short story ‘The drover’s wife’ (1892). No lesser than Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930), in the same year, embraced the power of venom with his early Sherlock Holmes story, ‘The adventure of the speckled band’ (1892), which he felt was his best ‘Holmes’ story. Subsequently Agatha Christie, JR Tolkien, Ian Fleming, Michael Crichton, JK Rowling and many others have embraced the fear and fascination inherent within the story of venom.

Dr Kenneth D Winkel

On a larger scale, it is telling of the power of this broader history that the world’s first temple site, Göbekli Tepe in Turkey (11 000 years old), that predates Stonehenge by 6000 years, has not angels but dangerous creatures, including snakes, spiders and scorpions, etched in its towering stone pillars. So potent were these creatures that their power was widely adopted in religious iconography and incorporated into many aspects of human culture. In particular, the image of a snake or serpent had multiple roles in the religious and cultural life of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece. For example, in ancient Egypt venomous bites and stings represented a major cause of injury and were a religious and cultural preoccupation. Indeed, the God Horus, represented here from a temple in southern upper Egypt from the Ptolemaic period (332 BC–AD 395) was a falconheaded deity with power over bites and stings. Gift giving was believed to offer protection from these hazards or assist in healing the bitten. Similarly, such was the significance of venomous snakes, that a pictogram of the deadly horned viper (Cerastes cerastes) actually formed part of the written ancient Egyptian language. This culture also offers us perhaps the first surviving text on snakebite—the papyrus held at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Dating from Dynasty XXX or the early Ptolemaic Period (305 BC), among other topics it refers to the treatment of the snakebite wounds by lancing.

Dr Kenneth D Winkel

Ayurveda has been the mainstream of learned medicine for 2000 years, but in the latter half of the first millennium, a new system arose that rapidly grew in popularity. The Garudam tradition originated as numerous divinely-revealed medical manuals for treating snakebite and a host of related medical issues. It incorporated some of the typologies and vocabulary of early Ayurveda, but improvised an elaborate system of religious healing focused on the bird-deity Garuda. While Garuda is today ubiquitously associated with the Hindu god Vishnu, these texts considered him to be an alternative manifestation of Shiva. Shiva’s connection with poison and healing goes back to the early hymns of the Rig Veda, and becomes famous in the epic Mahabharata where the story is told of how he became Nilakantha (‘blue-throat’) by drinking a terrible poison that threatened to destroy the universe. Pairing Shiva with the avian archenemy of snakes and incorporating their medical teachings into the then-popular tantric ritual framework created a system that quickly became the de facto standard for snakebite treatment in South Asia. The Garuda Tantras teach both mantra-based ‘religious’ cures for snakebite as well as plant-based medicines. Faith in the utility of mantras to treat snakebite envenomation was widespread, even among highly-educated scholars of the day. Mantras were considered to be more effective than plant-based antivenoms, but also more dangerous in that if the practitioner made a mistake in the ritual, disastrous effects would ensue. The basic ritual consisted of a complex routine of visualisation and sacralisation of the body of the practitioner. The result would be a spiritual transformation of the practitioner into the deity in question—usually Garuda, but also Shiva as Nilakantha or a host of different goddesses. The most popular mantra was a group of five syllables sacred to Garuda, variously arranged to form different words and effect different actions on the venom.

Dr Michael Slouber

Theriac θηριακή (thēriakē), the feminine of the Greek θηριακός (thēriakos), signifying ‘pertaining to animals’, was a famed compound remedy, promoted as a universal panacea since at least the first century AD. This jar held the nineteenth-century version of this concoction. The huge list of ingredients (up to eighty different simples), added with the difficulty in sourcing them and the long time needed to prepare this medicament (up to forty days) made it a very expensive but much valued, even central, part of medieval and early modern pharmaceutica. Moreover, concern for the standardisation and quality of this product ultimately drove the development of Pharmacopoeia texts and the earliest concepts of modern drug manufacture, regulation and safety. Theriac, also known in England as ‘Venetian treacle’ due to its monopolistic site of production, was subject to controls in its manufacture, frequently enforced by royal decree. By the Renaissance it was often prepared in public, to ensure its purity. Its legendary origins were traced to a recipe prepared by Mithridates IV of Pontus, to protect himself from poisoning. The recipe was improved by Andromachus (Emperor Nero’s physician) who added mashed and roasted vipers (following the principle of ‘like curing like’). Similarly Galen prepared his own variant for the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. The Antidotarium Nicolai, a medieval pharmaceutical book, lists seventy ingredients needed to prepare the Great Theriac of Galen (originally detailed in Galens ‘Antidotes 1’ and ‘11’): including opium, viper’s flesh, squills, long pepper, balsam wood, cinnamon, rhubarb, cassia wood, myrrh, gum arabic, asphalt, St John’s wort, nasturtium, terra sigillata (medicinal clay from Lemnos), castoreum (secretion from a male beaver’s castor sacs) and mummia (powder from ground-up Egyptian mummies), all ground up and mixed with wine and honey to form a thick paste. It was prescribed for a huge variety of ailments from epilepsy, apoplexy, dropsy, the stone, leprosy, and smallpox, to poisons, the bites of snakes and plague. It could be taken as a pill or diluted in wine or vinegar. It could also be applied externally, such as on the location of a snakebite to draw out the venom. The formulation appeared as late as the 1884 French Pharmacopoeia.

Dr Kathleen Walker-Meikle

Reference: JP Griffin, ‘Venetian treacle and the foundation of medicines regulation’, British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, vol. 58, 2004, pp. 317–25.

In 1949, Kevin Budden (1930–1950) and friends, Neville Goddard and Roy Mackay, wanted to catch the highly feared and elusive taipan. The lack of a specific antivenom, combined with a toxic venom and strike efficiency, created a sense of urgency in this quest. Budden was a safe snake handler and already had experience with dangerous southern Australian snakes including the difficult to handle common brown snake. They set out for Coen, as Mackay had found records of taipans from this locality in the Australian Museum where he was employed as a taxidermist. Upon arrival, they found themselves in a sea of tall grassland that made it almost impossible to see snakes. They missed one which slid through Goddard’s legs and another which sought refuge in the roots of a tree beside the Coen River and would not re-emerge. In 1950, twenty-year-old Budden went to Cairns on another taipan quest. He caught twenty-seven snakes before finding a taipan at the rubbish dump near Edge Hill. He caught it without any equipment or snake bag and walked to the nearest road and summoned a truck, in which he sat beside the driver with the snake in his hands. When he arrived at his friend’s place, the identity of the snake was confirmed. Unfortunately, Budden relaxed his grip whilst putting it into a bag and it bit him on the boot, before fastening on to his hand. Horrified onlookers wanted to kill the snake, but Budden insisted it was too valuable for research. The snake was secured and he was rushed to Cairns Base Hospital. At the hospital he was in good spirits and was more worried about the welfare of the snake than himself. Early signs of paralysis appeared, Budden’s condition gradually worsened and, despite receiving tiger snake antivenom, he died on 28 July 1950. The Queensland Naturalist Club wrote on a piece of particleboard at his gravesite in 1992: ‘Kevin Cliff Budden, 1950, He gave up life for all Queenslanders, let us not forget him.’ Budden’s dying wish was for the snake to be sent south for research. It was sent to the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories where they arranged for well-known naturalist David Fleay to undertake the task.

Peter Mirtschin

The medical profession has a distinct duty to the public in regard to this danger to life [snake bite]. Every medical practitioner should be able to treat snake bite when it occurs, not by applying popular remedies or makeshift procedures, but in accordance with scientific data. Editorial, Medical Journal of Australia, June 15, 1929 The arrival in Melbourne, in April 1867, of a manure merchant and his pet cobra, latterly returned from Ceylon, precipitated the University of Melbourne Medical School’s first foray into a significant research program, one that continues to this day. The seminal event brought George Britton Halford (1824–1910), Professor of Anatomy, Physiology and Pathology at the University, into the autopsy room of the Melbourne Hospital the following day. The fatal bite from that cobra stimulated Halford to develop his radical germ theory of snakebite poisoning and subsequently promote the use of ammonia injections as treatment (illustrated here). Although highly controversial, Halford did succeed in igniting an explosion of global interest in the pathology of snakebite. His lasting contribution, however, turned out to be his comparative studies of snake venom toxicity. Indeed, in less than a year after Halford’s original observations, the pioneer US toxinologist, Silas Weir Mitchell (1829–1914) from Philadelphia, had written seeking Australian samples of ‘dry venom of your own serpents’. To Halford’s great advantage, Mitchell had forwarded him dried rattlesnake venom. These snakes differed in their dentition and venom toxicity from that of Australian snakes. Halford used this valuable venom in his subsequent, and at that time unique, comparative studies of cobra, Australian tiger snake and rattlesnake venoms. Ten years on Halford had not returned the favour to Mitchell. Halford’s correspondence also made waves in a different colony of the Empire. In India, where snakebite was and remains a much greater problem than in Australia, Halford’s report stimulated a large series of experiments by the Indian Medical Service. This work, including on the venom of another type of snake, the vipers (also illustrated here), was led by Joseph Fayrer (1824–1907), Professor of Surgery at the Medical College of Bengal. Fayrer ultimately secured two dozen Australian snakes in 1873, which helped to debunk the germ theory. From these beginnings, the University has continued to contribute to the global debate on the nature of venom. Specifically, a succession of internationally significant venom researchers, notably CJ Martin (1898–1903, Department of Physiology), Neil Hamilton Fairley and Charles Kellaway (1928–39, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute), accompanied by William Feldberg (1936–38, WEHI) and ER Trethewie (1938–41, WEHI and, later, the Department of Physiology). Then Saul Wiener (1952–58) and Struan Sutherland (1966–99) both documented their pioneering venom and antivenom research as Melbourne MD candidates working at Commonwealth Serum Laboratories (CSL). This exhibition also documents the critical contributions to the Australian story of venom which were made by non-physician researchers such as the pioneering Fannie Eleanor Williams (1920–40s, WEHI), zoologists Frederick McCoy (1854–99, Natural Sciences and Melbourne Museum), David Fleay (1927–37, Zoology, Melbourne Zoo and Healesville Sanctuary), Tom ‘Pambo’ Eades (1920–42, Melbourne Zoo, WEHI and CSL) as well as Donald Thomson (1929–34, WEHI and Zoology). Numerous CSL researchers, led by the microbiologist Frederick Morgan (1928–56), were also instrumental in the successful production of Australia’s suite of human antivenoms. This interdisciplinary nexus, within the theme of toxinology at Melbourne, was further strengthened when the late Struan Sutherland founded the Australian Venom Research Unit (AVRU) in the Department of Pharmacology, upon the privatisation of CSL Ltd, in 1994. This relocation, facilitated by the then departmental head, and subsequently Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, James Angus, brought the story of venom full circle, in refocusing at Melbourne, the research and education activities previously undertaken at CSL post Kellaway. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, this exhibition does not document the end, nor the beginning of the end, but it does, perhaps, show us the end of the beginning of the story of venom.

Professor James D Best Head of the Melbourne Medicine School

Reference: P Hobbins, ‘Snake germs and Professor Halford’s webs’, University of Melbourne Archives Bulletin, no. 29, July 2011, pp. 3–5.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ARGUS Sir,-As we are doubtless to have a few more hot weeks, during which snakes may still be found by some too near to be pleasant, and even a fatal accident may result, I will trouble you with a few more remarks that I believe will be useful. Permit me to recall to your readers' recollection the storm of abuse that was raised in some quarters by my suggesting to throw liquid ammonia into the veins of human beings. Even after Dr. Dempster, myself, and others had shown its possibility, the practice was highly denounced by the London Lancet. I allude to these matters to show what a great innovation was being made, and, therefore, with what anxiety the result of the treatment was expected by me, for who could tell beforehand from observations on dogs the dose requisite for a human being? The quantity that I recommended might be too little or too much, and this point could only be determined by a multiplicity of cases. I am pleased to find that experience has proved correct the views I hold in my first letter to you, dated November 17, 1868. Speaking of ammonia, I said; " Mixing freely with the blood, and being eminently volatile, it does its work speedily, and is as quickly used up; consequently it must be replaced by fresh injections as often as required,." It is most important to bear this in mind. It was most thoroughly comprehended by Dr. Dowling, who on the 27th November, 1869, injected a man five times, that is on the occurrence of any bad symptoms, each time giving immediate relief, and finally recovery. Dr. Jackson, of Mount Gambier, in the like manner, on 23rd December, 1870, injected a girl five times, with like results. In this case nothing else was done or given… .-I am, Sir, your obedient servant, Feb. 22. GEORGE B. HALFORD. The Argus, Thursday 23 February 1871, p.7

These first aid kits for snakebite and spiderbite, similar to many types carried and used by Australian colonists, farmers and travellers away from medical aid. Both wooden ends unscrew— one to reveal a lancet, the other hollowed to contain several grams of potassium permanganate (Condy’s Crystals). ‘‘First Aid to the Injured’’, initially published by the St John Ambulance Association in 1879, has been the western world’s and Australia’s secular best-seller since that time (Pearn, 1998). From the outset, all first aid textbooks and their predecessors, the colonists’ and farmers’ ‘‘Family Medical Guide’’, gave instructions about the field management of snakebite (Fullerton, 1870). One such booklet, “The Medical Telephone”, contained ‘‘Hints for the Preservation of Healthy [and] Ambulance Notes on Wounds and Fractures’’. It was published in Hobart in 1883. Its first aid advice was: BITES—if by poisonous snakes or insects [the wound] should immediately be well sucked; for an hour or more if a snake. Then strong ammonia may be applied to the wound; that will relieve the pain of insect bites, and obviate after results (Homoeopathic Pharmacy Hobart, 1883). The first aid or field management of the envenomed colonist included cautery, suction, excision and application or injection into the bite site of carbolic acid or potassium permanganate (Condy’s Crystals), this latter carried for a century by bushmen in the Outback for just this purpose. Colonial first aid practices for snakebite had evolved from the original teaching of William Harvey (1578–1657), he of ‘‘De Motu Cordis et Sanguinis’’, and one of the pioneers of experimental toxinology. Harvey wrote:… in the bite of serpents… a man might be saved… if a very strong ligature were made above the wound immediately and the mortified part below the ligature were cut off presently (Warrell, 2001). This exhortation developed into pragmatic if drastic action in the Australian Outback two centuries later. Instances are recorded where ‘‘the bitten area was cauterised by setting fire and a heap of gunpowder poured on it, or amputation of the bitten part with an axe or gun’’ (Sutherland, 1994). Colonial first aid practices for snakebite had evolved from the original teaching of William Harvey (1578–1657), he of ‘‘De Motu Cordis et Sanguinis’’, and one of the pioneers of experimental toxinology. Harvey wrote:… in the bite of serpents… a man might be saved… if a very strong ligature were made above the wound immediately and the mortified part below the ligature were cut off presently (Warrell, 2001). This exhortation developed into pragmatic if drastic action in the Australian Outback two centuries later. Instances are recorded where ‘‘the bitten area was cauterised by setting fire and a heap of gunpowder poured on it, or amputation of the bitten part with an axe or gun’’ (Sutherland, 1994).

John Pearn and Ken Winkel

Toxicon 48 (2006) p.730

The Australian quest to provide ‘scientific’ advice on snakebite stretches back to the dissections and animal experiments of James Agnew in 1843. Unlike his medical predecessors, Agnew, later Premier of Tasmania, explored both the dental anatomy and venom of local snakes. Others erratically addressed the topic thereafter, notably Sydney surgeon Alfred Roberts in the late 1850s and Melbourne’s Professor George Halford a decade later. Some, like Agnew, were diverted by natural history; others focused on devising ‘rational’ remedies. However curious they appeared later, many treatments were underpinned by contemporary logic. Dosing a snakebitten child with half a bottle of brandy made sense in 1860: it was considered both a stimulant to counter paralysis and a specific directly neutralising venom. Intravenous ammonia, championed by Halford from 1868, was believed to reinvigorate the blood and heart against venom’s deleterious effects. Another notorious poison, strychnine, was recommended twenty years later to pharmacologically antagonise venom toxicity in nerves. Many such treatments boasted large numbers of apparently successful outcomes—and hence loyal converts. Although immunologically generated antivenenes (antivenoms) against local snakebites were successfully tested by Federation, their wide-scale production proved problematic. Indeed, having discounted other pharmacological remedies, medical scientists Charles Martin and Frank Tidswell ultimately recommended the ancient European (and Aboriginal) practices of ligature, cutting and sucking the wound. This advice was promulgated by state boards of health for decades: the diagram attached to this 1929 letter dates to the 1890s. Australian investigators Neil Hamilton Fairley and Charles Kellaway were thus disappointed when their late 1920s experiments in snakebitten sheep implied that even these simple measures were ineffectual unless applied immediately. Although Kellaway helped drive the clinical introduction of tiger snake antivenene in 1930, it was not until the late 1950s that ‘scientific knowledge’ provided a truly effective range of remedies for most Australian snakebites.

Peter Hobbins

Dear Dr Kellaway, Nearly a year ago now I sent you a letter & the head of a black snake, which must be a different species to the Australian one, as it is the chief cause of death from snake bitein this district … Did you get it? So began a letter from Dr WE Giblin of ‘Telephone no. 9, Port Moresby Papua’ on 23 June 1935 to the director of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute. The correspondent inquired about the possibility of a visit ‘to learn something about the preparation of an antivenene right from the first stages of how to catch a snake’. He included detailed notes on a ‘most unusual and dramatic’ case of fatal snakebite which he had recently attended. Charles Kellaway responded by return post on 1 July and considered that the ‘black snake’ was Oxyuranus scutellatus, the taipan. He advised that ‘it is probably one of the most deadly snakes in the world’ and confirmed that ‘we would be delighted to see you when you come over in October and also I will put you in touch with Morgan, who is doing all the antivenene work at the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories’. It is apparent that this ‘inquiry’ started a long-term engagement between WEHI, Commonwealth Serum Laboratories (CSL), the University of Melbourne and those involved in snakebite in Papua New Guinea (PNG). A further example is the many letters exchanged between John Graydon and Ken Slater and ‘Moresby’ doctors such as Charles Campbell on snakes in the late 1950s. Slater provided venom for developing the Papuan black snake antivenom (illustrated here), a product released by CSL in 1959. In 2005, events came full circle when Australian Venom Research Unit (AVRU) student David Williams was awarded the inaugural Nossal Institute of Global Health PhD Scholarship for Australia for studies on PNG snakebite. David’s work resulted in the development of the first new monovalent snake antivenom for Australia and PNG in fifty years. The antivenom against the Papuan taipan (illustrated here in the ‘dangerous snakes of PNG’ stamp series) finally addresses ‘the chief cause of death from snake bite’ as identified by Giblin in 1935.

Dr Kenneth D Winkel

Reference: Walter and Eliza Hall Institute Archives, Black snake correspondence, WEHA00050, 1932–41.

… and we’re back to the stage where Flecker started. We know something and we know almost nothing … We’ve solved two or three problems and it appears [we have] at least another four to go. Dr Jack Barnes in B Kinsey, More Barnes on box jellyfish, 1988, p. 48 Science is an endless frontier. Ever since Struan Sutherland was invited to join the department of pharmacology in 1994, my Cardiovascular Therapeutics Unit has been collaborating with the Australian Venom Research Unit to unlock the secrets of a particularly challenging venom, that of the Irukandji jellyfish (Carukia barnesi). This marine sting, and associated jellyfish, is colloquially known by the anglicised version of the name of the original custodians of the lands between Cairns and Port Douglas (the Yirrganydji people) where this envenomation is most common. Although it is related to the much larger multi-tentacled Chironex fleckeri box jellyfish, unfortunately the CSL Chironex antivenom is ineffective against the Irukandji venom. Now, almost twenty years after Struan engaged us on this quest, as Dr Jack Barnes—who discovered this jellyfish back in 1961, commented (quoted above)—we have solved some problems associated with this jellyfish, but have many more to go. Although it has taken many years, mostly due to a shortage of jellyfish for study, we have persisted and now understand the basic pharmacology of this potentially lethal sting. We found that this jellyfish triggers the release of a storm of nerve activity that releases sensory and autonomic sympathetic and parasympathetic transmitters and circulating adrenaline. This translates to a very painful envenomation that is associated with sweating, anxiety, nausea, vomiting, a rapid pulse and raised blood pressure. Of concern is the fact that this can lead to intracranial hypertension and haemorrhage (two sting victims have died this way). But we still don’t have a specific antivenom or other pharmacological antidote. We could not complete this project from Melbourne because of the tyranny of distance. We require colleagues in Queensland, and elsewhere, to help us collect, classify and study these creatures. While there is healthy competition amongst scientists to solve problems, this particular challenge is our problem; we are Australians and we’ve got to solve it. No-one else will.

Professor James A Angus

References: JH Barnes, ‘Cause and effect in Irukandji stingings’, Medical Journal of Australia, vol. 1, 1964, pp. 897–904. KD Winkel, et al., ‘Cardiovascular actions of the venom from the Irukandji (Carukia barnesi) jellyfish: Effects in human, rat and guinea-pig tissues in vitro and in pigs in vitro, Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology and Physiology, vol. 32, no. 9, 2005, pp. 777–88.

In some cases our early practitioners of ‘evidence-based medicine’ fearlessly debunked the mistaken ideas promoted by some Australians. For example, statistics published in 1893 by Sydney physician Louis Huxtable positively condemned the recommendation of injections of strychnine made by Dr Augustus Mueller of Yackandandah, Victoria. Huxtable’s studies showed that strychnine-treated snakebites had fatality rates of 13.2 per cent whereas those not treated with strychnine had a mortality rate of 4.1 per cent. Yet only three years earlier the editor of the Australasian Medical Gazette, asserted, ‘No medical man in Australia now can treat a case of snakebite other than by his method [Mueller’s intravenous injection of strychnine] without incurring the charge of culpable ignorance.’ Unfortunately, despite the evidence of Huxtable and others, in the absence of a specific local antivenom, such ‘worse than useless’ treatments persisted in Australia well into the twentieth century. Indeed as late as 1912, a strychnine-induced death of a child suffering from snakebite was reported in Melbourne. The tragedy of Semmelweis (1818–1865) had not been learnt. It is a recurrent lesson of history that the translation of research discoveries, especially those that challenge conventional medical paradigms, cannot be taken for granted. Nevertheless these definitive early snakebite statistics found their way to France and were reproduced in the foundation document of modern toxinology, Venoms, venomous animals and anti-venomous serum therapeutics, by Albert Calmette. It was Calmette, one of Pasteur’s disciples, who transformed snakebite management through the first commercial production of snake antivenom. Calmette, shown here in a contemporary cartoon, was but one of the giants of modern toxinology who also straddled the emergent dominions of immunology, microbiology, neurology, physiology and pharmacology. Many such discoveries were precipitated by academic industry collaborations as public health driven serotherapy and industrial chemistry underwrote fundamental mechanistic observations of the inner workings of the immune and nervous systems.

Dr Kenneth D Winkel

August Eichorn (1858–1944) was a bush pharmaceutist or folk-medicine practitioner. After an article in the Sydney Mail in 1913 detailed his theories, his fame leapt from regional to national. Eichorn’s theory of action of snake venom was highly original, even if his belief that venom was not a poison was a direct contradiction to the findings of Weir Mitchell (some thirty-one years earlier) that had led to the development of antivenom. ‘If kept cool’, Eichorn ventured, ‘the venom will stay liquified, subject it to heat and it turns into hard crystals. When bitten, the heat of the blood turns the venom into crystals, and they are carried to the heart and to the small corpuscles of the brain; they cannot be forced through and the patient dies of paralysis of the brain, whilst the heart becomes clogged with blood. An antidote therefore, must be such as will counteract the venom—something that will so cool the blood that there will not be sufficient heat to cause the venom to crystallise.’ There were certain provisos: ‘The antidote must be taken quickly but it can also be taken internally later.’ But Eichorn realised that the greatest problem he faced was in marketing his antidote and getting the public to overcome its belief that snake charmers are immune to the action of venom. Numerous photographs show him accepting the bites of tigers, browns and blacks on his arms, hands and face, and he boasted that he could accept a bite of three tiger snakes simultaneously, apply his remedy and show no ill effects. The Eichorn remedy itself had a dramatic impact that would have impressed all who used it and that worked as word-of-mouth publicity. There were two types, excluding the balms: the red and the black. When you put on the red it would sting like blazes, put on the black and your hair would stand on end.

John Cann

Edited extract from John Cann, Snakes alive! Snake experts and antidote sellers of Australia,

Kenthurst: Kangaroo Press, 1986, pp. 150–4.

Born in Melbourne, Charles Halliley Kellaway (1889–1952) completed medical and scientific studies at the University of Melbourne before serving as a medical officer in World War I. From 1918 Kellaway worked in London with some of the era’s most prominent medical researchers before being recruited as the second director of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in 1923. Under Kellaway’s leadership the institute was transformed from a small pathology department into a research centre equipped, funded and staffed to tackle the major medical problems of the era. Talented medical researchers from around the world were recruited, and Kellaway expanded the institute’s revenue base. His success in obtaining Commonwealth Government funding for venom, hydatid and polio research in 1927 was an early step towards the establishment of the National Health and Medical Research Council in 1936. Kellaway played an important role in building community support for medical research. The work of Kellaway and colleagues at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute and Commonwealth Serum Laboratories led to the first commercial antivenom for tiger snakebite in 1930, which saved the lives of many Australians. Kellaway himself was an early beneficiary of the antivenom, with newspaper reports describing how he had been bitten during the course of his research. He subsequently made many important discoveries through his studies of venoms, especially to the understanding of anaphylaxis and inflammation. In the public eye Kellaway was most recognisable as chair of the Royal Commission into the 1928 ‘Bundaberg Tragedy’, in which twelve children died after diphtheria immunisation. Kellaway’s rigorous scientific investigation highlighted the importance of medical research to the community. Kellaway steered the institute through difficult financial times in the Great Depression, brokering a pioneering deal between the Commonwealth Government and the American Rockefeller Foundation in 1933 that saved the institute from probable closure. In 1943, Kellaway resigned from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, and took the directorship of London’s Wellcome Research Laboratories, where he remained until his death. Kellaway became a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1940. This bronze medal was created to commemorate this honour a year later. Andor Meszaros (1900–1972) a distinguished sculptor captured the character and intelligence of Kellaway in this intimate rendition in bronze.

Professor Douglas Hilton

The Aborigines of Cape York Peninsula distinguished between the snakes of the region, recognising the taipan Oxyuranus scutellatus (thaypan in several local languages) as being more ‘cheeky’ (dangerous) than the mulga snake Pseudechis australis. Donald Thomson (1901–1970), the noted anthropologist and zoologist, observed that ‘the natives hold the taipan in great dread, and it appears to have been responsible for many deaths among them’. Thomson explored Cape York in 1928, 1929 and 1932–3, during which time he collected large numbers of animals, including 200 snakes, and wrote copious notes including Aboriginal knowledge about them. Of the taipan, he wrote: On 11.7.32 it snapped three times in rapid succession before ‘fastening in’, and at these three bites the great part of its venom was expressed. These ... snap bites which appear to be its regular way of biting follow upon one another with such rapidity that there would be almost no hope of prey escaping any one of them ... It is not such a powerful snake nor so difficult to hold as P. australis , but much more dangerous. These expeditions overlapped with his work at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute assisting Charles Kellaway with research and antivenene development. During this time Thomson was able to examine taipans in detail and he realised that the first specimen collected in the 1860s near Rockhampton and named P. scutellatus and two more snakes collected on Cape York by William McLennan in the 1920s, later named O. mclennani by JR Kinghorn of the Australian Museum, were actually the same species. Thomson published his findings in 1933, naming the species Oxyuranus scutellatus , and giving it the name taipan, derived from the Aboriginal usage. He became one of Australia’s foremost anthropologists, especially noted for his strong bonds with the Yolngu people. Thomson wrote newspaper articles on natural history over many decades and had voluminous correspondence with his readers on snakes, spiders, wasps and other venomous beasts. But his fascination with snakes had a practical aspect. Thomson undertook local expeditions from the family home at Eltham to hunt for tiger snakes on the basalt plains near Werribee, west of Melbourne, in the 1960s, accompanied by his four young children. I am not aware that many snakes were caught on these family outings, but his children retain vivid memories of those trips nearly fifty years later.

Ian Temby

H Morphy, ‘Thomson, Donald Finlay Fergusson (1901–1970)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, 2002, p. 16.Donald F Thomson, ‘Australian snakes of the genera Pseudechis and Oxyuranus’, Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, vol. 103, 1933, pp. 855–60.

The following extract comes from Douglas Adams’ interview of Struan Sutherland (1936-2002) as recorded in his 1990 book, Last chance to see: There is in Melbourne a man who probably knows more about poisonous snakes than anyone else on earth. His name is Dr Struan Sutherland and he has devoted his entire life to a study of venom. ‘And I’m bored with talking about it,’ he said when we went along to see him the next morning. ‘Can’t stand all these poisonous creatures, all these snakes and insects and fish and things. Wretched things, biting everybody. And then people expect me to tell them what to do about it. I’ll tell them what to do. Don’t get bitten in the first place. That’s the answer. I’ve had enough of telling people all the time. Hydroponics, now, that’s interesting. Talk to you all you like about hydroponics. Fascinating stuff, growing plants artificially in water, very interesting technique. We’ll need to know all about it if we’re going to go to Mars and places. Where did you say you were going?’ ‘Komodo’ ‘Well, don’t get bitten, that’s all I can say. … The most poisonous spider is the Sydney funnel web. We get about five hundred people a year bitten by spiders. A lot of them used to die, so we had to develop an antidote to stop people bothering me with it all the time.’ ‘So what do we do if we get bitten by something deadly, then?’, I asked. He blinked at me as if I were stupid. ‘Well what do you think you do?, he said. ‘You die of course. That’s what deadly means.’ In 1979 the National Health and Medical Research Council endorsed the use of the pressure immobilisation bandaging technique, as developed by Struan Sutherland at CSL, as the recommended first aid method for Australian snakebite. This technique, demonstrated here by Sutherland, combines occlusive bandaging of medium pressure to block lymphatic transport of toxins, with limb splinting and patient immobilisation. With the publication of his landmark paper in The Lancet on this method, Sutherland left what is arguably his most important legacy to the field of toxinology.

Dr Kenneth D Winkel

In 1952 CSL asked Worrell whether he would collect and milk taipans on their behalf. Worrell agreed and over the next few years mounted a number of trips to the Cairns area to search for these large, dangerous snakes. His first trip, organised by his friend, John Dwyer, resulted in three taipans being caught but only one was brought back alive to Sydney where it was sold to Sir Edward Hallstrom, president of the Taronga Zoo Trust. Hallstrom had offered fifty pounds for a live taipan that he could display at Taronga Zoo, and was pleased to be able to hand over the money to Dwyer (being the expedition leader) in exchange for this snake. The highly-prized snake was maintained at the zoo by Cann, who by this stage was in charge of its reptile collection. Hallstrom allowed Worrell to regularly milk this snake and it was the venom from this taipan and that of Budden’s, together with some venom supplied by Mackay-based snake handler, Ram Chandra, which formed the basis of the first batch of taipan antivenom. This antivenom became commercially available in 1955 and was used soon after to save the life of a young boy, Bruce Stringer. Worrell continued to make annual trips to North Queensland in order to collect enough taipans to satisfy the venom requirements of the CSL.These trips were arduous and extremely risky for Worrell and his friends and associates,who put their lives in danger in order to collect these highly dangerous snakes.By the late 1950s, Worrell’s ambitions had outstripped his small aquarium. By the late 1950s, Worrell’s ambitions had outstripped his small aquarium, and in 1958 he bought land at Wyoming, a couple of kilometres north of Gosford, where he established his iconic Australian Reptile Park (ARP), opening it to the public in October 1959. By doing so he was fulfilling his childhood ambition of developing a ‘reptile research centre’ where he could keep and study reptiles. In particular, Worrell was keen to expand on the venom production work and he envisaged the ARP playing a major role in helping to understand the medical applications of snake venoms. He built a comprehensive collection of Australian and overseas venomous snakes and other reptiles (as well as a range of native mammals and birds) and continued to provide venoms to CSL, and later other institutions and researchers both within and outside Australia. He forged a strong and enduring friendship with the CSL’s Dr Struan Sutherland, who in the late 1960s began an ambitious research program into the venoms of Australian snakes. During these early days of the park’s existence, Worrell provided venoms of taipan, tiger snake, death adder, brown snake and king brown, as well as Papuan black snake, to the CSL. By the mid-1960s, Worrell established a network of men such as Eric West and Roy Reynolds, who supplied him with venomous snakes so that he could focus on other aspects of his operations and leave the collecting of most of the snakes to others.

Dr Kevin Markwell and Dr Nancy Cushing

First Year Medical Students 1878 1878 photograph, mounted, with pencil and ink Medical History Museum Collection

Senior technical laboratory with students of all years present together with demonstrators, the Australian College of Dentistry c1919 photograph Henry Forman Atkinson Dental Museum

Students taking the first four year course at the Australian College of Dentistry. c1902 sepia toned photograph Henry Forman Atkinson Dental Museum

Gustave Joseph Witkowski France (1844–1923) Anatomie iconoclastique Pt. 9 A movable atlas showing the bones & muscles of the hand. The hand. Translated by James Cantlie. Bailliere, Tindall and Cox, London 1878–1888 book Special Collections Baillieu Library

James Drake (1667–1707) Anthropologia nova, or, A new system of anatomy: describing the animal oeconomy, and a short rationale of many distempers incident to human bodies printed for W Innys, London 1717 book Special Collections Baillieu Library Gift of D Dyason

Nikoloaus Rüdinger (1832–1896) Topographisch-chirurgische Anatomie des Menschen / von Dr. Rüdiger Stuttgart: Cotta 1873–78 book Special Collections Baillieu Library

Harry Brookes Allen Australia (1854–1926) Correspondence: Harry Brookes Allen to Monsieur Tramond 16 May, 1899, 1899 University of Melbourne Archives, Harry Brookes Allen collection

Harry Brookes Allen Australia (1854–1926) Correspondence: Harry Brookes Allen to Sir Redmond Barry 26 December, 1874 University of Melbourne Archives, Registrar’s Correspondence collection

Dr Mary C De Garis (1881–1963) Student notes from lectures, School of Medicine 1900–1905 ink on paper, cardboard Medical History Museum Collection

Sibyl Cardiwen Bevan Student notes for anatomy lectures, University of Melbourne c1903 – c1908 Paper, ink & coloured pencil Medical History Museum Collection Gift Mr D. L. A. Bevan

E S Stubbs Conservative dentistry lecture notes, handwritten by the student E S Stubbs 1818–1920 notebook Henry Forman Atkinson Dental Museum Gift of Mr Sergi Andrijenko

Tramond France Model of hemi-head showing the course of cranial nerves c1890 wax, cloth, wood Harry Brookes Allen Museum of Anatomy and Pathology 516-500238

Maison Auzoux France Model of the eye with extra-occular muscles and frontal bone 1889 papier-mâché, paint Harry Brookes Allen Museum of Anatomy and Pathology 516-500066

Maison Auzoux France Model of the larynx with removable parts c1880 papier-mâché, paint Harry Brookes Allen Museum of Anatomy and Pathology 516-500283

5. Maison Auzoux France Model of the tongue with removable layers 1889 papier-mâché, paint Harry Brookes Allen Museum of Anatomy

Herman Lawrence Australia (1863–1936) Moulage of the face, Lupus Erythematous (Ulerythema centrijugum) c1900 painted wax, gypsum Harry Brookes Allen Museum of Anatomy and Pathology 531-000279

DSC-2735_Anthony-Todd-Thomson

E W Willis Notebook: Bacteriology, handwritten by student E W Willis 1913 notebook Henry Forman Atkinson Dental Museum Reg. no. 576-2

Charles Harold Down Australia c1893–1965 Model of the left upper third molar of a Kangaroo (Macropus giganteus) c1922–1938 gypsum, enamel paint, wood, ink on paper Melbourne Dental School

Charles Harold Down Australia c1893–1965 Model of the left lower third molar of a Kangaroo (Macropus giganteus) c1922–1938 gypsum, enamel paint, wood, ink on paper Melbourne Dental School

Maker unknown Model of primitive single cusped tooth - protocone (series of 2) c1900–1930 gypsum, enamel paint, wood Melbourne Dental School

Maker unknown Model of the full development of the triconid tooth as seen in the dolphin and leopard seal (series of 2) c1900–1930 gypsum, enamel paint, wood Melbourne Dental School

Robert Carswell (1793–1857) Illustrations of the elementary forms of disease Longman, Orme, Brown, Green and Longman, 1838 book Special Collections Baillieu Library

Dr Mary C De Garis (1881–1963) Student notes from lectures, School of Medicine 1900–1905 ink on paper, cardboard Medical History Museum Collection MHM02027

Charles Harold Down Australia (c1893–1965) Models of teeth showing cavity preparation, Black’s Class 2, 30-35 c1922–1938 gypsum, wood, paint Henry Forman Atkinson Dental Museum Reg. no. 824.2

C N Johnson America (1860–1938) Models of cavity preparation showing inlays c1909 wood, ceramic, brass Henry Forman Atkinson Dental Museum Reg. no. 600

Maker unknown Models of human teeth for students to learn cavity preparation (series of 4) c1920 ceramic Henry Forman Atkinson Dental Museum

John Hunter (1728–1793) The natural history of the human teeth: explaining their structure, use, formation, growth, and diseases. London: Illustrated with copper-plates / by John Hunter printed for J Johnson 1771 book Special Collections Baillieu Library

Tramond France Skeletal knee with ligaments & tendons, showing joint capsule and subpatellar bursa bone, timber, wax, brass Harry Brookes Allen Museum of Anatomy and Pathology 516-102434

Henry Gray (1825–1861) Anatomy, descriptive and surgical / by Henry Gray; the drawings by H.V. Carter; with additional drawings in the second and later editions by Dr Westmacott; the dissections jointly by the author and Dr Carter 4th ed / by T Holmes London: Longmans, Green 1866 Book Special Collections Baillieu Library

Maker unknown Hand-held bell with chime c1860–1889 brass, other metal and wood Medical History Museum Collection MHM03378

E Leitz Wetzlar Germany Microscope, No. 128356 c1910 brass, glass, paint Biomedical Sciences Histology Facility

William J Tuckfield Australia (1881–1969) Model of the face with swollen right cheek c1940 coloured wax, gypsum Henry Forman Atkinson Dental Museum Reg. no. 420

Maker unknown Model of lower dentate jaw with protruding growth c1900 coloured wax on gypsum Henry Forman Atkinson Dental Museum Reg. no. 1974

Maker unknown Model of edentulous palate with red growth on upper right 8-7-6 region c1900 coloured wax on gypsum Henry Forman Atkinson Dental Museum Reg. no. 1968

Maker unknown Model of upper/lower jaw, mounted on wire articulators showing severe “malocclusion and attrition” c1900 paint, gypsum, wire Henry Forman Atkinson Dental Museum Reg. no. 1963

Major Kenneth Russell Australia (1885–1945) Upper and lower model and Gunning splint with palatal extensions c1917 treated gypsum model in 3 parts with vulcanite and wire extensions Henry Forman Atkinson Dental Museum Reg. no. 2647

Major Kenneth Russell Australia (1885–1945) Cast splint with vulcanite extensions to stabilise the soft palate c1917 treated gypsum, brass, vulcanite Henry Forman Atkinson Dental Museum Reg. no. 2646

Sir Ernest Daryl Lindsay Australia (1889–1976) Se96/ 130 Cpl Nelson (19) 1917 watercolour, ink, paper Royal Australasian College of Surgeons

Major Kenneth Russell Australia (1885–1945) Sectional appliance in two parts to close a cavity and provide a denture c1917 treated gypsum, brass and vulcanite Henry Forman Atkinson Dental Museum Reg. no. 2656

Franz Josef Steger Germany (1845–1938) Abdomen with retroperitoneal dissection c1900 gypsum, paint Harry Brookes Allen Museum of Anatomy and Pathology 516-500095

Franz Josef Steger Germany (1845–1938) Model of a male torso with the posterior surface dissected to reveal the spinal nerves and viscera c1900 gypsum, paint Harry Brookes Allen Museum of Anatomy and Pathology 516-500004

Wenceslaus Hollar Bohemia (1607–1677) after Hans Holbein the younger Germany (1497–1543) Doctor 1680 engraving on paper Baillieu Library Print Collection, The University of Melbourne, Gift of Dr J Orde Poynton 1959 1959.3031.018.000

Frederick Leighton England (1830–1896) The archery lesson 1895 engraving on paper Baillieu Library Print Collection, The University of Melbourne Gift of Dr J Orde Poynton 1959 1959.4261.000.000

Richard I Woodman England (1784–1859) The idle and luxuriant student attended at his apartment in the college by his sempstress. From The Idler 1798 stipple engraving on paper Baillieu Library Print Collection, The University of Melbourne Gift of Dr J Orde Poynton 1959 1959.5536.000.000