Taizhou Evening News reported on November 26, 2021, a case in which Xie Mou, a 60-year-old in Taizhou, Zhejiang Province, was sentenced for catching more than 200 Zhoushan cobras, while his purpose was to sell them at a price of 60 to 100 kilograms, and he also bought an unknown number of snakes from others.
Is snake wine poisonous?
According to Xie Mou's account, in addition to a small number of people who buy snakes are edible, most of them are used to make wine! The Zhoushan cobra is actually a Chinese cobra, and its venom type is a mixture of neurologic and hemocytic toxins, which can be life-threatening if the bite is not treated in time.
Poisonous snake brewing wine is a common operation in East Asia and many countries in Southeast Asia, traditional medicine believes that "snake wine" has a certain effect on some diseases such as rheumatism, can dispel wind and communication, activate blood, analgesia, detoxification, anti-alarm and other effects, and in everyone's cognition are this understanding, so soaked in the common poisonous snake wine, or everyone sought after good things, sometimes invite friends and relatives to taste together.
Let's not rush to conclusions, let's take a look at a case!
In the summer of 1992, Xiao Xie (very coincidentally, he is also surnamed Xie) who lived in Xiashui Lane, Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, happened to see someone selling poisonous snakes when shopping, and he did not send poisonous snakes such as bamboo leaf green and golden ring snakes, and he thought that he had a lot of liquor in his home, so he bought 8 various poisonous snakes to go home and brew wine.
In order to brew a pot of fine snake wine, Xiao Xie prepared the best liquor and a glass jar with good sealing, and also rinsed 8 snakes with liquor and put them into the liquor jar to soak, carefully checked the sealing and then placed it in the corner of the storage room.
This put is 22 years, the time came to the summer of 2014, Xiao Xie also boiled into lao Xie, he suddenly remembered that there is a pot of snake wine soaked for 22 years, may wish to take advantage of this summer to drink two mouthfuls to cool off, he carefully moved out of the wine jar, opened the blanket to smell, it seems that the wine smell is quite strong, there should be no bad dish, poured a cup, sipped a small sip of careful aftertaste.
This taste is a little strange, Lao Xie also has no experience in drinking snake wine, this wine is brewed by himself, it is all good wine, so he swallowed it with confidence, but there is an unspeakable smell, Lao Xie is not too assured, put down the wine glass and turn around to go to the balcony to see the flowers and plants, by the way, pour a water.
Tossed on the balcony for a long time, just ready to go back to the living room to drink a few more sips, suddenly in front of the eyes, the clear scenery in front of the eyes began to blur, blinked fiercely, to make sure that it was not lost, and nodded dizzy, quickly supported the wall to the living room sofa and squinted to rest for a while before slowing down.
Lao Xie understood that this snake wine must be weird, and it must not be drunk again! On August 18, 2014, Jiangxi News reported on Mr. Xie's case, and reporter Gu Yanqi also interviewed Wang Wenli, deputy director of the Pharmacy Department of Nanchang Hongdu Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, for this matter, and Dr. Wang said:
"Many people like to use live snakes to brew wine, but the wild toxicity of the live snake itself has not been cleaned, or the toxic ingredients have not been removed, no matter how long it is soaked in the wine, it contains toxic ingredients, and the medicinal wine will become poisonous wine."
Director Wang also said that the reason why Mr. Xie has symptoms of blurred vision may be related to his own physique, some people may be allergic to medicinal wine, and it may also be that the poisonous snake brewing wine itself has a certain degree of toxicity, after 8 poisonous snakes brew wine, the toxicity can not be decomposed, after all, Mr. Xie's poisonous snake wine has not been professionally tested.
In this way, snake wine may really be poisonous, so why is snake wine poisonous? Doesn't it mean that the human body can digest the poisonous proteins of snakes, and how can it be poisoned?
How exactly does snake wine poison people?
Bamboo leaf green and golden ring snake these are undoubtedly poisonous, and the toxicity is not low, if the bite is 100% will be poisoned, as to whether there will be life danger, then depends on the degree of poisoning and whether the medical treatment is timely, but for the poisonous snake brewed wine to drink will not be poisoned, it is estimated that everyone has something to say, after all, many friends have drunk, it seems that no one has been poisoned!
From the poisonous snake soaking wine to the person drinking belly poisoning, at least several processes will be experienced, one is the decomposition of alcohol on the venom, the other is the decomposition of the venom by stomach acid, which is a double insurance mechanism, but Lao Xie is still poisoned, although it is relatively mild, but this is entirely because he drinks less, only a small sip, if you drink a cup or a few cups, then the consequences are unimaginable.
Snake venom is also a toxic protein, alcohol is a very good solvent, but in the 100% decomposition of snake venom in this question is not a definite answer, there is no theoretical support, alcohol disinfection and decomposition of venom is completely two concepts, the former is a microorganism, the latter is a protein, whether it can disinfect does not mean that it can also eliminate the toxicity of toxic proteins.
Then there is only half of the problem left, the digestive tract decomposes toxic proteins on this issue, there is less information in this regard, but it is still found that scientists have already done research in this area!
There are two papers on the NCBI, "Penetrability of orally Toxic Protein from Cobra Venom through the gut of a blowfly, published on January 3, 1980, and "Oral toxicity to flesh flies of a" published in 1992 neurotoxic polypeptide" (oral toxicity of neurotoxic polypeptides to Drosophila).
The possibility of snake venom penetrating into the intestines of insects was studied, and from the process of processing the digestive tract, it was studied whether snake venom would penetrate into the blood through the digestive tract, because if the snake venom was decomposed, it would have little impact on the human body, but once the snake venom penetrated into the blood through the digestive tract, then the process of venom would be similar to the process of being bitten by a snake.
From the results of the study, this possibility is still quite large, 70 to 85 minutes after the fly "took poison", about 8% of the radioactive labeled "marker" appeared in the hemolymphalytic fluid, some of which are degradation products, but there are still 0.3% of the complete chromatographic toxin, that is to say, the venom eaten by the fly, at least 0.3% of the proportion into the blood.
So what happens to the human body if it takes a relatively large amount of venom? There is an article on the WhatIfShow website that analyzes this process, because the venom may be absorbed into the bloodstream by contacting the mucous membrane of the gastrointestinal tract when the gastric juice is completely decomposed, and the next problem is more serious, because the symptoms of snake venom poisoning will occur.
For example, the neural venom of cobras can cause decreased eye movements, droopy eyelids, and difficulty speaking, swallowing, and breathing, while the blood toxins of rattlesnakes can cause bleeding from internal organs and mucous membranes, or blood clots that occur due to blood clotting, leading to heart failure. If you take a small amount, the symptoms of poisoning are not easy to say, and everyone's symptoms may be different because of the sensitivity level, such as Lao Xie's blurred vision is likely to be a ciliary muscle control paralysis caused by neurotoxins.
Cases of poisoning by drinking snake wine
From the perspective of the principle of poisoning, although the toxins that enter the blood after drinking snake wine are relatively small, the probability of poisoning is not high, but because of this, many friends will drink for a long time, and the risk is still very large!
In July 2011, Hangzhou Lin'an 50-year-old Mr. Huang, due to rheumatism around to collect good medicine for the treatment of rheumatism, the result was that the snake wine was better and found a large bottle of five-step snake brewed medicinal wine, the same day to drink on the vomiting diarrhea, and also launched a high fever, Mr. Huang also thought that the effect of the next day insisted on drinking, to the third day, the stomach is adapted, but the hands and feet are weak and even can not hold the cup of water.
After that, the problem became more and more serious, after a week not only did not get better but almost paralyzed, after sending to the doctor, the doctor diagnosed that the accidental ingestion of snake wine led to peripheral neuropathy, his proximal limbs can move, but the distal limbs can not move because of insufficient muscle strength, and the time has passed nearly ten days, has been unable to take effective treatment, can only slowly recover.
On April 28, 2020, two 14-year-old boys in Yong'an, Guizhou Province, drank snake wine poisoning shock, because at noon invited classmates to eat at home, felt out a bottle of snake wine brewed by their father, two boys only drank a small cup (about one or two) on the poisoning shock, fortunately was found by one of the boys passing by the uncle in time to send to the hospital, after treatment has been out of danger of life, otherwise the consequences may be very serious.
Drinking snake wine poisoning cases are not in the minority, you must not believe in the folk tradition of snake wine various effects, there are many friends will appear to tell you that someone drank snake wine to cure a certain disease, etc., this case is not known to be true or false, but the case of snake wine poisoning in the news almost died is true, if there is a disease, please ask a doctor to diagnose, never self-diagnosis and treatment.