Snake Venoms and Envenomations

The book came to me hygienically sealed.. chuckle...Took ages to get the shrink wrap off.The book was originally printed in french in 2002 so this is a translationGreat glossary at the beginning, makes life easier for people not familiar with reptile terminology. I am impressed that the author makes it clear in the preface that out of 2700species of snakes, around 500 are venomous & potentially dangerous to people in some way. Mostly due to accidental meeting or the snake defending itself. The introduction does a brief intro to cultures' reactions to snakes.Unlike the previous book, this is readable, and easy to understand. The author is good at imparting information. Chapters are broken in to short paragraphs and lots of heading to see where you are up to.4 appendices, one even for Anti-venom producers are their products, including Australian Commonwealth Serum Laboratories. If you are interested in measuring toxicity, one appendix deals with that.Simple index. A starter for learning about this subject, not as dry as the previous text book

This book is a well-thought out and well put together must for anyone with an interest in snake venom. Regardless of a person's level, this book has something for all.We have much to learn about the complexities of venoms and as we move towards new discoveries in the biomedical realm for these elixirs, more and more scientists will find themselves enthralled with the exploration of this aspect. This book is a great addition to any serious herpetologist's library.Douglas HotleCurator of Herpetology/SerpentariumNatural Toxins Research CenterTexas A&M University-Kingsville

I'll start by saying that I'm a scientist with expertise in immunology, but I'm learning snakes and venoms. Aside from a few typos and odd language construction here and there, the thing that I found most frustrating was chapters 1 & 2, and a pervasive problem with poorly explained matters. The book suffers from more than a little, "clear as mud, but it covers the ground" syndrome. Some of this may have been artifacts of the translation process.I was puzzled by having 6 maps of the ancient world breaking up, and yet there was no big tree diagram of the snakes relatedness. There is in figure 1 a kind of map of snake families, and it's interesting, but given short shrift. Perhaps there is no large scale sequencing project that has been done yet, and so it isn't possible to have a tree diagram? Surely there must be something. I would suggest such a tree diagram, and at the end of each line a representative drawing that emphasizes the important feature(s) of that snake family.I also found it hard to stay with the the reading as various snakes were discussed. Mostly, only latin names were used, except here and there a common name. But it seemed that I was expected to know those common names, and use a companion volume to look species up. Even a sentence or two would have helped orient me. For instance, when talking about colubrids, "The common gartersnake and most other commonly seen non-venomous snakes are colubrids, the largest family." I knew elapids already, and was familiar with Naja, but overall this is the weakest aspect of the book. It should have had a few english beta readers who were not experts.Similarly, terms like opisthoglyphous are used and not defined for a while. It's distracting. I was left wondering if it meant head shape, form of locomotion, presence or absence of a rattle,head scale pattern, or arrangement of teeth. Reading pages and pages of text where most of the important name placeholders are unknown is hard to stay with.On the first two chapters in particular, some of the figures could have been much better. For instance, if the maps had dots on them of different shapes corresponding to families, we could see visually how the appeared and differentiated. I had to flip pages back and forth a lot to follow the text. It would be better to have the discussion of each map right under the map. That part was interesting. (And I am a firm believer in the importance of fundamentals.)The dentition figures were an example of a clear diagram, but could have marked (say, with a box) the kind of dentition snakes have. Little things like that would be helpful. I liked the snake head scale patterns. Those were excellent.I really think that each snake name within the zoology of snakes needs at least a black and white line drawing of that snake. I don't know what a burrowing adder is, and no better idea what Atractaspis is. I need an image. Perhaps a little drawing of it going underground to eat mice? (I'm just guessing what it's usual prey is.) It would also be nice to have a small line drawing map of the world (like the last one of the series in chapter 1, but in miniature) with the range of the snake shown in half-tone. This would have helped give me my bearings.Part II picks up some, but there is a persistent problem with laundry-list factoids. Dr. Chippaux's expertise does show. But it does a poor job of explanation. Saying, "It's a presynaptic alpha-neurotoxin" covers the ground, but for someone who doesn't already know the subject, it doesn't have a lot of meaning. There is a lot of that sort of thing, "Toxin A" "Toxin C", CVF, without introduction. A bit of orientation to what these terms mean would be quite helpful. Some images might be good. RCSB is free (with proper citation) if you render yourself, and you can use Raswin to render. Takes a bit of digging to find a good one and then orient it nicely. But here's a result of a quick RCSB search. http://www.rcsb.org/pdb/explore/explore.do?structureId=1YI5The info is fairly present - but as I said, there is way too much laundry-list and discussion at a level appropriate for knowledgeable colleagues. Far too little explanation suitable for students. Unfortunately, the knowledgeable colleague isn't where this book is primarily aimed. I'm sorry. I had to revise my rating after thinking it over and more completely reading the book.