"heating drastically reduced the activity of all venoms except that of Crotalus ruber and Crotalus molossus molossus. ...whereas upon heating, all except five venoms lost essentially all of their activity. "
If it's venomous though, doesn't the toxin have to be introduced directly into the bloodstream? Ingesting venom, especially after it's been cooked into a nice tasty snake soup, might be inadvisable, but not lethal.
If you ingest the venom, cooked or not, it will still be unravelled by stomach acid, worked on by peptins, and absorbed into the blood stream via the gut.
That's part of why sucking venom out of wounds is a bad idea.
I'd have thought that if there's enough venom in the wound that it causes you a problem when it's only in your mouth for a moment, the bitee is probably already dead. But advising 'spit, don't swallow' and 'wash your mouth out' may get lost
No. The mouth mucosa is very vascular (that's why some pills only need to be kept under the tongue and why you can just rub cocaine on your teeth to absorb it).
It doesn't need a long time.
(Also note that it can also depend on the hydration level of the snake. Less hydration = more concentrated)
The difference between venom and poison is that venom needs to somehow enter your bloodstream, poison can be ingested in various ways. There are in fact people who drink snake venom with no adverse effects; but if you have a cut or open sore in your digestive tract, no go.
Comments
Most of the compounds that constitute snake venom are proteins.
If you heat the liquidised snake to above boiling point it should denature most proteins.
But what I don't know is if denaturing the proteins makes then non-poisonous.
I just looked it up.
It seems the proteins might be denatured, but enough activity survives to be dangerous.
Not all poisons or venoms are lethal.
If you ingest the venom, cooked or not, it will still be unravelled by stomach acid, worked on by peptins, and absorbed into the blood stream via the gut.
That's part of why sucking venom out of wounds is a bad idea.
It doesn't need a long time.
(Also note that it can also depend on the hydration level of the snake. Less hydration = more concentrated)
Enjoy.
(I reckon it wouldn't be, but I don't fancy trying it, thanks all the same)