outdoors

Snakes on the brain

by Eric Jackson

Consider that most fearsome of jungle monsters, the Extremely Mean Biting Snake. It hangs out on low lying branches near rainforest footpaths, hoping to bite some human passerby and slither back up the tree to a safe height, from whence it can laugh its hissy laugh as it watches its victim die a horrible death.

Such things DO exist in the natural realm --- but just in that part of nature that's the human brain. To conjure up this particular fabulous beast you probably have to have a sick human brain at that.

On May 22 Nathan Gray of the Earth Train Corp spoke at one of the Albrook Tuesday Talks about snakes and the human brain as examples of the learned and wired-in mental functions. "We all brought snakes with us today," he started out. "They bear little resemblance to the snakes in the garden."

Earth Train is an international program that works "with young people who have the spark to make a change in the world." It has an upland rainforest campus on 4,000 acres near the Continental Divide not far from Kuna Yala, where there are courses in sustainable development but more than anything about how to teach students and young professionals with leadership potential to think out of their customary "boxes."

Typically, people have "insides of fear, stupidity and deceit," and examining the ways that most of us relate to snakes is a good way to understand the problem.

"People don't get to walk in nature because of fear of snakes," Gray pointed out, adding that it's ironic because in many ways people see things the way we do because of snakes. When primates began walking on two feet, that freed our hands to manipulate our environments, but also put the organs through which we see, hear, smell and taste the world higher off the ground and made us less fleet-footed that our quadruped neighbors. To compensate --- so as, for example, not to step on snakes --- our ancestors developed greater visual acuity. "We see the way we see thanks to snakes."

If we care to look at snakes, they are "exquisitely decorated creatures." But generally we don't observe much when we see them because a fight or flight reaction based in the neocortex spurts out adrenaline, which shuts down the cerebral, higher brain functions.

That lower brain fear leads people to some unfortunate decisions, and not just in relation to snakes, Gray opined. Even stronger than the fear of snakes in most people, he noted, is the terror that public speaking inspires. The "nebbish" syndrome that a lot of men experience in the presence of very attractive women is another example. All these fears, Gray said, can be mastered, but "it takes physical practice to master the lower brain."

Then there are other brain functions that are evironmental in origin. Bring kids from a northern industrial society whose brains have been conditioned by a constant electronic data flow, Gray observed, and they can't pick up things --- like a snake in the path --- that their contemporaries who were raised in and around the jungle can.

When people are experimentally shown a handfull of marbles and then asked to describe what they saw, the different learned brain functions become apparent. Some people describe the things that they physically saw, with varying things that they consider important enough to mention, but others, particularly those with the most advanced educations, skip over the physical description to all manner of symbolism.

One can cut through a lot of that and grab the attention of a group of kids from the industrialized world, he noted, by telling them that they're going into a jungle where there are 25 species of venomous snakes.

"We must learn how to be fully sentient human beings," Gray argued, opining that "the real snakes that cause us harm" --- particularly dishonest people --- can adopt social camouflage as effectively as the snakes can blend in against their natural surroundings.

And as a practical matter, what about snakes?

Coral snakes have small mouths and rigid fangs, so you usually have to go well out of your way to get bitten by one.

The largest of Panama's venomous snakes, the bushmaster, avoids environments with people and is thus rarely encountered. "If you find one, let me know," Gray advised.

Most snakes get out of people's way.

Tropical snakes don't hibernate and tend to be well fed, and a snake that has just used its venom --- a special adaptation of digestive juices --- to catch and digest food will tend to have less toxic venom than a hungry snake.

About 20 to 30 percent of bites by venomous snakes are "dry" --- without the injection of poison --- but those and the bites of non-venomous snakes are cause for medical concerns, as animal bites in general can lead to some bad infections.

While the bushmaster is the largest of the pit vipers --- snakes with long, hinged fangs that allow deep injections of venom and heat-sensing pits that allow for hunting warm-blooded animals at night --- we see a lot more bites from their smaller cousins the fer-de-lances and the patocas, who "are more likely to stick around and show an attitude."

In the dry season these snakes like to hang out under dry fallen leaves, so walking through the leaves is and stumbling across a snake is one of the more common snakebite scenarios.

A lot of snakebite victims are teenagers who have been drinking and recklessly do things to annoy the serpents that end up biting them.

So what to do if you have the unusual misfortune to be bitten by a real life version of the extremely mean biting snake?

First, remain calm.

Second, try to identify the thing that bit you, if possible by killing it and taking it to the hospital with you.

Try to keep the bitten extremity below the heart.

Most important of all, get to a hospital emergency room right away.

Don't put on any tourniquets, try to suck poison from the wound, apply any hot or cold compresses or cut into the bite marks. Thos will only make matters worse.

And what's the worst?

Well, people do die, particularly children. Remember that the smaller a person is, the more potent a dose of snake venom will be. (Also understand that just because it's a little snake does not lessen the danger because younger snakes tend to have more potent if less voluminous venom than their larger elders.)

Generally, however, snakebite victims don't die. But when the bites of pit vipers, whose venom dissolves tissues, are not promptly or properly treated, amputations are the frequent result.

And to avoid poisonous snakes in your environment? There are various strategies but the main one is to deny them food. The pit vipers that you want to avoid eat rats and mice, which in turn eat garbage, so just don't have garbage around to feed the rodents that feed the snakes.

You can also reduce the risk of that fer-de-lance biting you if you learn to master the lower brain terror when seeing a snake, and if you live on a farm with a groundskeeper by inducing that employee to do so as well. See, the norm here is to kill all snakes, whether they might be boas, fer-de-lances or whatever. But boas eat fer-de-lances, so killing that big boa is not only a matter of taking out an irrational fear on an innocent party, it means that you're likely to get more venomous snakes living on your property.

Also in this section:

Snakes on the brain
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