- Title: Sri Lanka: Snakes
- Date: 13th March 1973
- Summary: Roll No. 1 Snakes and the Village Snake bite specialist. Farmer returning home after work along snake infested la ( LS, MS and CUS of legs.) 10 ft Snake moves showing hood poised for attack. CUS of snake and farmer's leg passing cobra. Cobra stings. 34 ft Cobra roaming, villages comes to the Snake bite specialist house for treatment. News goes round and children and elders gather to witness the scene. Patient being treated by applying the medicinal stone on the wound - note the two blood marks of the sting - the stone sticks to the wound till all the poison is drawn into it, after which the stone falls off. This stone is a rook-hard dried medicinal pill composed of herbs. It is called "Wisa gala" After this the patient is given pills to expedite recovery A medicinal liquid is put into a twin spoon and poured into the patient's nostrils. This treatment has been known to be effective after a patient has been "pronounced" dead, though really in a coma. 85 ft Snake specialist demonstrating with various type of venomous snakes found in Sri Lanka. This man, Mr. Wijepala is the son of a famous snake bite specialist in Sri Lanka, and patients are brought to him from all ports of the island. Here he shows two Red Cat Snakes (Biinhalese - Le Mapila ) 100 ft Roll 2 Red cat snakes with CUS. - a milin poisonous snake mostly living on trees. 5 ft The cat snake, slightly different to the red variety. Sinh. "Naga Mapila" 15 ft The Pala Polonga - green pit viper - a highly venomous snake, also arboreal. It camouflages its credence by its colour. 30 ft CUS of fangs 35 ft The Malsara - Golden tree snake - colourful and moderately venosus viper. 50 ft Another specimen of the viper family, locally known as Rana Polanga. Highly poisonous. 60 ft A baby python on grass 70 ft] Whip snake - known locally as Pala Bariya. 77 ft Cobras. 100 ft Roll 3 The shots in this roll were taken at the laboratory of the University Medical Faculty. peradeniya, with Research worker on Venoms, Mr. Anslem de Silva at work. GS of Mr. Desilva getting ready to extract Venom from a Green Pit Viper. The venom is squeezed from the fang into a test tube and examined under a microscope. 40 ft Freeze dried venom being examined. The venok is abruptly placed at a temperature of - 60 degree centigrade - and reduced to powder form. This is mixes with similarly prepared venoms of other poisonous snakes. These venoms form the base of an injection which is given to a horse. The injection for snake bites is prepared from the blood extracted from this horse. 48 ft Freeze dried venom being weighed. 58 ft Polyvalent anti venom being administered intra venously. 65 ft Examining the venom apparatus of the Ruseels viper end the Cobra. CUS and MS. The sac which contains the venom is about one centimetre long. 90 ft Poisonous shakes in glass tubes. 100 ft Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 27th March 1973 13:00
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- Location: Telijiawila, Matara: and University Medical Faculty Peradeniya, Kandy
- Country: Sri Lanka
- Reuters ID: LVA54XHM5QPYCETGB6KXOHFESKGX
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