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medicine for mountaineering- anyone read this? 9-Sep-2006 At 2:57:33 PM AlanD

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On 9/09/2006 Andrew_M wrote:
>One thing to note is that it's very US-centric with regard to things such
>as animal attacks, spider/snake bites and infectious disease (eg the snake
>bite treatment is completely different for Australian snakes). Small gripe
>really.

It has to be*. Australian snakes do not bite as deeply as there US cousins (and most of the rest of the world). Australian snakes injet their venom into the skin, actually scatching the surface and leaving the venom on that region and this affects the lymph system, hence why we treat snake bites with pressure bandages. Most snakes around the world inject the venom deeper, into the blood system and hence why it's important to stop te circulation of the blood by the use of a tourniquet and to extract the venom.

* Sure they could cover both types of snake bites, but who was the target audience of the author?