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The Virtual Anaesthesia Textbook

Poisoning, Bites and Envenomations

Last modified 10/11/2017. Comments to: Chris Thompson

Contents:


Poisonings and Toxicology

MDPoison.com is a good starting point. Nicholas Buckley, Andrew Dawson and Ian Whyte of Newcastle University, Australia, have authored HyperTox a commercial PC or Palm application for poisoning management. A fully functional time-limited demo and some sample information is available for download. Most of the information is now available in the WikiTox drug listing, part of the WikiTox Curriculum project.

Useful overdose advice for medical practitioners is available for:

The US CDC maintains the Hazardous Substances Top 20 and ToxFaq sheets that contain consumer oriented documents about health affects, testing, levels of exposure, and protection measures for industrial toxins like lead, arsenic, and mercury, as well as useful Medical Management Guidelines.

US NLM provide a comprehensive set of Toxicology databases and information resources, including TOXLINE.

Several quite good interactive toxicology cases are also available at MedConnect (requires valid MedConnect username and password).

Information and advice for the general public:

General public information is available from many sites, however they are rarely very useful. Try the American Association of Poison Control Centers.


Bites and Envenomations

An amusing interview with Struan Sutherland, the 'old man' of Australian envenomation research, is no longer on the net, unfortunately. His book, A Venomous Life, makes interesting reading. A comprehensive CD on venoms and venomous creatures can be purchased from Atheris in Switzerland.

Venoms and Antivenoms

Australian envenomation - Descriptions of the venoms of Australian nasties and their modes of action. For anesthesiologists and ER staff.

Venom Supplies - an Australian company specialising in venom purification and sale.

Snake bites

Australian Snakebite information - emergency treatment and medical management of Australian snakebites, with colour pictures of many snakes.

Spiders and Insects

Australian Spider and Insect bites - this page contains emergency treatment and medical management of severe envenomation following Australian spider bites, with colour pictures of the funnelweb and red back spiders. Detailed medical management.

This Hobo Spider site is very comprehensive.

Marine Envenomations

Australian Marine Envenomations - emergency treatment and medical management of Australian marine envenomations from creatures such as the box jellyfish, the blue-ringed octopus, etc. Bruce Livett has a page about Cone Shells. The Australian Museum Online has a nice page about bluebottles (Portuguese man o'war).

Information and advice for the general public:

The American Association of Poison Control Centres helps you locate a centre that may have information on both poisons, insect, spider and snake bites and similar mishaps. General public information and advice about US spider bites is available from only a few sites..

Societies and lists for professionals:

VENOM-L is a list for professionals involved in venom research. Send an e-mail message to: majordomo@icomm.ca , in body of message write: subscribe venom-l


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visitors to this chapter since April 29th 2000.

Original concept for the Virtual Anaesthesia Textbook by:
Dr. Chris Thompson
Senior Staff Specialist Anaesthetist
Royal Prince Alfred Hospital
Sydney Australia