TOO LATE FDR PRINCE

Taranaki Daily News, 19 January 1935, Page 17 (Supplement)

TOO LATE FDR PRINCE

NEWS OF SNAKE’S VENOM. POISON THAT KILLS AND CURES. A Spanish prince died a few months ago, and it has ndw been discovered that a serpent’s poison could have saved his life. This poison cures as well as kills. One of the wonderful things about the body is its great power o'f recovery from injury, and surgeons by the use of antiseptics and grafting have made Nature’s healing even more ■ effective. The blood which carries nourishment to every quarter of our bodies also carries healing factors in its stream. We can see them at work every time we cut our finger. The bleeding stops in a; few minutes because the blood has clotted or coagulated. Coagulation is brought about by a ferment called thrombin, which is evolved from a substance in the white cells uniting with salts of lime; end this union only occurs when another liquid is added to it, a tissue extract which flows from uie edges of a wound. Now there are some men whose bodies lack this power of blood coagulation, and only quite recently it was impossible to staunch the flow of blood through a wound. The prince of the royal house of Spain died from loss of blood as some of his ancestors had died, for the disease is hereditary, strangely enough attacking males only. Scientists have long been endeavouring to find a mire for this terrible though rare disease, and now they have found it, curiously enough, issuing from the fangs of a poisonous snake. The venom from this snake injected into the blood of a sufferer from the disease will cause the blood issuing from an injury to coagulate faster than Nature effects it in a man enjoying normal health. The snake is made to bite on a piece of silk, and the venom is allowed to dry up, as it preserves its peculiar properties in a dry stato better than in its original liquid form. #'* * * HER INTENTION. Wifie: You act as if you’ve been drinking punch again. Hubby: Punch, my eye! W’ifle: That’s just what I intend to do.