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On the Stability of Desiccated Snake Venoms^1,2,

From the Instituto Butantan, São Paulo, S. P.; Brazil

Abstract

The toxic potencies of desiccated snake venoms were tested over a period of up to 13 years.

It was found that the non-hemorrhagic, so-called neurotoxic venoms had lost little or nothing of their original toxicity in 8 to 9 years of storage in cork stoppered glass tubes in the dark. Hemorrhagic venoms kept under the same conditions had lost 41 to 56% of their power in 9 years and 84% in 13 years (Vipera) and 78 (Bitis) and only 14 (Agkistrodon)% in 8 years. When stored in a frequently opened and re-evacuated desiccator, Agkistrodon venoms lost approximately 70% of activity within one year. Under similar conditions, lyophilized neurotoxic Crotalus venom lost about one third of its original toxic potency in a couple of months whereas its antibody-binding capacity decreased less markedly, if at all.

The significance of these observations is discussed.

Footnotes

¹ Carried out under Government of the State of São Paulo (Public Health) Contract, Reg. no TC 3861–50, and presented before the Society of Experimental Medicine at São Paulo, S. P., January 27, 1951.

² Certain deficiencies of the present paper are due to the fact that the experiments were not originally planned for the purposes of this study and that all records on the treatment of the venoms and previous experiments with them were destroyed in World War II.