A 11 years old white male was bitten twice at his right hand by an ordinary “non-poisonous” snake, natrix tigrina, and came to hospital carrying this snake. He had bite wounds on the slightly swollen hand back without particular general complaints. His blood cell counts were within normal ranges, having platelets at the level of 180,000/mm
3.
Scarcely 30 hours after his admission, large suggillations were observed on upper and lower extremities together with hematuria and followed by epistaxis which could not be stopped so easily. The blood clotting time was longer than 30 minutes, the fibrinogen content in plasma being 60 mg/d
l, and the prothrombin time could not be measured as the reaction sample did not clot.
The hemorrhagic diathesis was worsened more and more, and his neck also swollen with tender enlarged lymph nodes. At the same time, secretion containing a few stripes of blood ran off through his right nasal lacrimal duct. His blood showed pretty high elevation of fibrinolytic activity and remarkable hypocoagulability, so that blood transfusion was performed, but it was obliged to be stopped because of side effects, such as fever, exanthem, etc., and then he was given ε-aminocaproic acid intravenously with fibrinogen and antihistamic drugs under the diagnosis of defibrination syndrome.
Thereafter his clinical symptoms and laboratory findings began to turn to better side gradually and he was discharged on his 26th hospitalization day with complete recovery.
In this paper the action of snake venom and the mechanism developing defibrination syndrome were also discussed concerning on this case.
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