Snake Handlers

[Nyarlathotep]

Over the weekend I watched a show on the National Geographic Channel about venomous snakes and part of it showed a 'Snake Handler' church in Tennesee. The show said that the incidence of snakebites in these churches is pretty low. I am curious if anyone has any ideas on why this is (for the record, I am an atheist and thus don't buy the 'God's Protection' theory)

My own theory is this: From what I saw these guys are pretty careful with the snakes, whether it is consciously or subconciously I don't know. They seem to mostly just pick up the snake, lift it up and move pretty slowly with it. They don't make any sudden moves or hurt the snake (in fact the reverend of the church seemed kind of fond of his snakes). Most snakes aren't all that aggressive and bite only as a last resort. In fact a later segment of the same show showed just how far one could push an eastern diamondback rattler (a snake with a fairly aggresive reputation) before it made a serious attempt at biting. The snake didn't make a serious attempt at a bite until it was stepped on. Since the snake handlers don't hurt the snakes and don't startle them, they don't get bitten.

Does anyone have any other ideas or anything else to add?

[justsaygnosis]

A friend of mine had Boa's.
They were pretty laid back when they were well fed but they were testy when they were hungry.
Maybe they feed them first.
The snake handlers tend to shy away from fer de lances. There's something about venom that can kill in seconds that warrants being real good at what one does or avoiding them altogether.
Unless someone is hyper allergic to rattler venom they're not extremely dangerous to be bitten by; not that it's comfortable, just not life threatening.

[Nyarlathotep]

That's a good point about keeping them fed.

And the thing about the fer de lance. It kind of makes me wonder how they would fare with some of the more aggresive breeds of snake (I have heard that mambas are pretty aggressive, as are sea snakes at certain times of the year).

[triadboy]

The amazing thing about the whole snake handling/poison drinking thing is - it all comes from one passage in the bible - Mark 16:9-20. These verses were not in the original writings of Mark! They were added hundreds of years later, probably by one of the Church Fathers. So in this respect they are not the inspired word of god - and yet goofy people have faith in them.

[Segnosaur]

Snake handling was covered in a couple of Randi's commentaries.

See:
http://www.randi.org/jr/040502.html
And
http://www.randi.org/jr/042602.html

Basically:
- Snakes don't really bite that often, it is a defence mechanism
- Even when bitten, many bites are 'dry' (no venom); also, the venom of some snakes is not strong enough to kill humans

[Nyarlathotep]

Originally posted by triadboy
The amazing thing about the whole snake handling/poison drinking thing is - it all comes from one passage in the bible - Mark 16:9-20. These verses were not in the original writings of Mark! They were added hundreds of years later, probably by one of the Church Fathers. So in this respect they are not the inspired word of god - and yet goofy people have faith in them.

Whether its the inspired word of god or not, I would be a lot more impressed if they chugalugged some Drano or a nice Dioxin cocktail with no ill effects. That would give them some credence in my eyes.

It nver ceases to amaze me what goofy things people will pick to have faith in.

[Nyarlathotep]

Originally posted by Segnosaur
Snake handling was covered in a couple of Randi's commentaries.

See:
http://www.randi.org/jr/040502.html
And
http://www.randi.org/jr/042602.html

Basically:
- Snakes don't really bite that often, it is a defence mechanism
- Even when bitten, many bites are 'dry' (no venom); also, the venom of some snakes is not strong enough to kill humans

Thanks for the links. As for the thing about the weak venom, the snakes they showed them using were copperheads which, if I recall, have a very weak poison.

[Darwin]

There are some snake handlers that are cabable of amazing feats,yet they are not evangelists or what I should ever call them.

I recall having recently read about one religious snake handler having died of his snake´s bite.

[7th sextile]

A book on this topic I liked:The Serpent Handlers,by Fred
Brown and Jeanne McDonald.People do indeed sometimes
get bitten,envenomated and suffer serious injury and sometimes death when handling certain species.(the strikes are often aggravated by the Signs Follwers's refusal to call in medical assistance,preferring to pray over the victim instead). The book even mentions one family's kids who are snakebite "orphans"-
one parent died handling,the other continued to do it and also died of a bite.

[crocodile deathroll]

Tell 'em
This is not a snake
http://www.naturalsciences.org/funstuff/notebook/herps/copperhead.jpg



This is a snake

http://www.australia.ru/venomous/pix/taipan2.jpg
It is a taipan, no one has survived its bite without an antivenom and all that useless praying and chanting will not give those Tennessee snake charmers a ghost of a chance.

[crocodile deathroll]

You may even throw in a few nice frisky black mambas for good measure http://www.gov.bw/tourism/flora_and_fauna/img/black1.jpg

[MRC_Hans]

Mmm, I read somewhere that many snakes have two kinds of bites, one with little or no venom and one with the full dose. The idea is that it takes time and energy for the snake to replenish its venom charge, so unless it feels that it is in grave danger, it tries a "blank" bite first, as this will usually chase off an attacker. Only if the attack is percieved to continue, a second bite will deliver a full dose. Same when hunting; a small prey will often be incapitated by a weak dose, or at least slowed down, so the second bite can finish it off.

About snake handlers, I saw a TV documentary many years back: A team from the Danish TV had visited one of their churches (back then few Danes even knew the sect existed), and filmed a ceremony. During that one of the participants was bitten, and actually died subsequently. It was later speculated that the presense of strangers with camaras and lights may have scared the snakes and made them more aggressive, thus actually triggering the event.

If that was the case, God would seem to need to consult a PR agent :rolleyes:

Hans

[Mercutio]

This story (http://www.hollandsentinel.com/stories/120698/rel_serpent.html) tells of a snake-handler who dies as a result of his preaching. His wife (another snake-handler) died of a snake-bite three years earlier. His children are in a custody battle between the sets of grandparents, one set active snake-handlers, the other former snake-handlers.

Sometimes natural selection works too slowly.

[crocodile deathroll]

Venoms behave differently to various species of animal and if you happen to be an evengelist lab rat or mouse you would have a very good reason to fear a bite from the Inland Taipan, the snake that is right on top of the list of all the world's deadly snakes,any has a fairly high vemon yield to boot.

Fortunately it lives right out in the middle of that Australian outback in the middle of nowhere, well out of harms way from anybody and stupid evanlgelists for that matter.

Here is a list of some of the world's deadlies.
Table of deadly snakes and LD50 ratings (http://www.kingsnake.com/toxinology/LD50/ld50sc.html)

[Nyarlathotep]

Originally posted by Mercutio
[B

Sometimes natural selection works too slowly. [/B]

You got that right.

Thanks for the story BTW.

[KillerBob]

It seems to me that simply getting the snakes used to people probably plays a part in it too. If the snake is being handled by people everyday, it seems to follow that it would feel less and less threatened by them and therefore less likely to strike.

Hell, by now the snakes have probably figured out that biting someone only makes the service last a whole lot longer as everyone prays for the moron, errr, "victim".

[crocodile deathroll]

Originally posted by KillerBob
It seems to me that simply getting the snakes used to people probably plays a part in it too. If the snake is being handled by people everyday, it seems to follow that it would feel less and less threatened by them and therefore less likely to strike.

Hell, by now the snakes have probably figured out that biting someone only makes the service last a whole lot longer as everyone prays for the moron, errr, "victim".

It's amazing what you can do with dangerous retiles (http://www.etonline.com/celebrity/a11229.htm) and famous celebrities if you know what you are doing.

[MRC_Hans]

Originally posted by KillerBob
*snip*
If the snake is being handled by people everyday, it seems to follow that it would feel less and less threatened by them and therefore less likely to strike.
*snip*Sure! If snakes are used to being handled, I've been told they enjoy it. They like the warmth.

Hans