1959 Volume 3 Issue 4 Pages 499-507
The local pathological changes occurring in our experimental animals when Habu-venom was injected are classified as follows: (1) extensive hemorrhage by intracutaneous injection and (2) myolysis with extensive hemorrhage by intramus-cular injection. Both of these changes take place immediately after the injection of small quantity of venom.
It must be noted that there is a marked difference in the degree between changes caused by the intracutaneous injection and those by intramuscular. Even when the doses are similar in quality and quantity, and the animals used are the same, yet the latter produces far more violent changes. In an actual Habu-bite case, it is clear that the symptoms are more serious when the patient is bitten deep into the muscle.
People in Amami Oshima-island and other South-Western islands are afflicted by Habu-bite; several hundred cases are reported every year. Immediately after the bite, there is severe pain with the appearance of swollen area. Because the progress of these pathological changes is so quick and the additional first aid is so primitive, it is almost impossible the snake bite victims to receive adequate treat-ment. Ignorant to the character of the bite together with improper disinfection, the victims often invite inevitable reinfection, and this leave the patients maimed after the healing of the wounds.
A case in Nase City. A victim of a snake bite made a several hours trip across the mountain and sea in order to receive treatment at Nase-city, the only place where assistance from a surgical specialist could be obtained. His operation findings and histopathological examination showed serious myolysis and extensive hemorrhage (Fig. 7). His upper limb on the wounded side had already swollen. These findings agree quite well with the pathological changes caused by intramus-cular injection of animals in our experiment.
The quantity of the venom used in our experiment was within 10 mg dry weight. The maximum collectable amount of venom from living Habu-snake is 300 mg dry weight; one tenth of this amount equal to several times the maximum experimental dosage used.
Sawai and Makino(2, 3) reported on the neutralizing effect of anti-Habu serum against Habu venom. Neutralization test in vitro showed that in order to counteract myolysis effect of 300 mg Habu-venom, 160 ml of the serum was necessary. One or two 40 ml serum available in the Habu-prevailing districts is not sufficient. Moreover, by the time the patients can get to the village chief in whose house the serum is always kept, the symptoms have taken serious and quick progress. The counteracting power diminishes when the intramuscularly injected serum reaches the wound by the circulation of blood. Therefore, until now, the local effect of the serum therapy depended on what part of the body was bitten and how much of the venom has acted.
The parotid gland of the Habu is the organ which is toxic, and when its secre-tion is fully injected into small animals upon swallowing them, as we have seen above, the characteristic pathological change is myolysis in the muscle. These facts tell us that proteinase in the venom is the very cause of the pathological change.
As reported in other papers (4, 5, 6, 7), much proteinase is present in the Habu-venom. A dried and preserved material still possesses strong enzyme activity. A kind of proteinase, which is separeted and purified, also has strong myolysis action as well as venom's action (6, 8, 9) (Fig. 8).
In another report, we have stated that this enzyme consists of metallic Mn(5, 6, 7), which is chelated by EDTA (ethylenediamine tetraacetic acid). In chelating Mn, EDTA depresses enzyme action; it also depresses myolysis action of crude venom pathologically(6, 10, 11, 12).
We have suggested EDTA as a first aid to the Habu bite. As a stable and portable therapeutical medicine, we believe that its early application would be of great help.
This article cannot obtain the latest cited-by information.
