Snakes
Snakes are very common in India, China and Japan. While snakes are worshiped in India the Chinese and the Japanese relish snakes as a delicious dish.
There are different kinds of snakes, poisonous as well as non poisonous.
Boas and Pythons are of a kind. Though non poisonous, they are very powerful ones. They are very large snakes, sometimes more than thirty feet in length and as thick as a man’s thigh. They can easily kill their victims by winding themselves around them and crushing their bones to death. The biggest of this kind is mostly found in the African jungles.
A big calf or deer can in this way be killed and swallowed by the python. After taking food, the python lies still for several days, till the animal it has swallowed is slowly digested in its system.
There are other snakes which are harmless, like the Indian Rock snake and all the English snakes. The Viper alone is highly vicious and poisonous But the difficulty Is unless you are learned about the various kinds of snakes by sight, you cannot easily distinguish between the poisonous and non poisonous snakes.
Many snakes are very poisonous and we have in our country, the Cobra, he king Cobra, Russel’s viper, the krait and some other snakes which are deadly poisonous The bite of these snakes causes death immediately and many people in India die of snake bite every year.
Unlike the scorpions, the snakes cannot sting but only bite. The snake has two frontal teeth with hollows or grooves which are known at the fangs. Behind the fangs is a small bag full of poison. When a snake bites a person the two teeth puncture the skin and then the poison flows out through the wound due to the pressure exerted by the fangs over the poison bag. Hence the poison quickly gets into the blood and kills a person immediately.
To save a person from instantaneous death from snake bite, the place where the snake has made the two holes with its fangs are to be cut by a sharp knife and the blood allowed to ooze out of the wound. Then you must put your mouth on the wound and suck the poison out. But a person who has an injury or wound in his mouth should not attempt this, for the poison will enter into his system and kill him through the wound or injury in his mouth.
The snake poison is now being extracted ‘periodically from the snakes kept and maintained in snake farms. This poison is found to be useful in very many medical preparations. The snake skin is used for making ornamental pouches purses, bags and belts for which there Is a great demand in the foreign market.
In India, the snakes are worshiped and they are fed with milk on auspicious days. To kill a king cobra is seemed as a great sin in India.
