RACE FOR LIFE

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXVIII, Issue 73, 20 March 1933, Page 4

RACE FOR LIFE

111 SHED OX ER 400 MILES TO SUPPLY POTENT SERUM LONDON, February 6. A snake was rushed 400 miles to London by express train, identified in a few hectic seconds at the Zoo, and a potent serum —-the only supply in Britain —hurried back to a dying man's bedside in Glasgow in time to work a miracle and stave of death. The once-doomed man is now recovering, thanks to critical injections of the serum. Such is the story of the deadly yellow mamba in the glass bottle, whose bite means death within a few hours for all but those with the hardiest constitutions. John Ryan, a young expert at a Glasgow naturalist's opened a bottle that had arrived from Holland, in which he expected to find a harmless green tree-snake. He was bitten by the reptile that emerged from the bottle, but he took no notice of the scratch. Half an hour later he collapsed from giddiness, and his aim began to swell.

He was whipped off to hospital, but the doctors could do little for the victim of an unknown snake. There was only one hope. A friend rebottled the snake —with care —and caught a fast train to London where a seventy-mile-an-hour car was waiting to take him to the Zoo. He arrived at the Zoo half an hour before the next train left foi Giasgow. At the Reptile House Dr Barrett, forewarned by telegram, was waiting. In a moment he identified tke snake as the deadly yellow mamba. Fortunately a dose of special mamba serum was in stock, in case of an emergency which does not arise in many years. Half an hour later the serum was in the pocket of a passenger in the Scotland-bound train. There was a dramatic midnight scene at the hospital when the serum was injected into the man whom nothing else could save from death. Throughout the day students gathered round the man.who had been bitten by a mamba and lived. Meanwhile the mamba has left his bottle, and he may be. seen in a glass case in the Reptile House at the Zoo.