"Venomous" Bites from "Non-Venomous" Snakes

"Venomous" Bites from Non-Venomous Snakes, Second Edition is the first significant contribution to thoroughly examine the potential hazards associated with non-front-fanged snakes, former family, Colubridae. This family contained >65% of living snake species (approximately 3,000 taxa) and has recently been split into multiple families and subfamilies. Many of these snakes produce oral secretions that contain toxins and other biologically-active substances. A large variety of non-front-fanged snakes figure in the pet industry, yet little documented information or formal study of their potential medical importance has been published. Therefore, although the possible medical importance of many of these species has been subjected to speculation since the mid-nineteenth century, there is a limited amount of useful descriptive information regarding the real hazard (or lack thereof) of snakes belonging to this diverse, artificial family. The first edition of this book provided "one-stop shopping" by offering information regarding their possible toxicity and clinical relevance as well as recommendations for medical management of their bites. The second edition will expand and update the content with detailed information about the effects and medical management of bites by at least 12 non-front-fanged species. The ever-changing taxonomy of advanced snakes is updated, and the bases for some of the changes is discussed. Likewise, terminology is also updated in order to reflect the ongoing debates regarding the definition of ‘venom’ and the balanced reinforcement of non-medical criteria used to define the biological basis of the term "venomous". Fills a gap in toxinological, medical, and herpetological literature by providing a comprehensive review of this entire assemblage of non-venomous snakes, with particular attention given to their capacity to cause harm to humansOffers a patient-centered, evidence-based approach which is applied to analyzing documented case reports of bites inflicted by approximately 100 speciesProvides expanded and updated detailed information on the clinical management of medically significant bites from non-front-fanged snakes which is also methodically reviewed and specific recommendations are providedIncludes updates to the taxonomy of advanced snakes and also to terminology with particular regard to the definition of "venom" and the non-medical criteria used to define the biological basis of "venomous"