Incidence of Treated Snakebites in the United States

Abstract

SNAKEBITE ACCIDENTS happen more frequently in the United States than most people realize.Recent estimates (1) of about 1,000 to 2,000 such accidents annually have been far too low.There have been surprisingly few studies of the magnitude of the incidence.Will- son (2) in 1908 reviewed 740 snakebite cases spanning several years; data on 440 of these were collected from reviewing the literature; information on the remainder was assembled from various private sources.Hutchison (3^) described 607 case reports of snake venom poisonings in the United States occurring dur¬ ing 1928 and 482 reports of poisonings occurring during 1929.These case histories were obtained from newspaper clippings and report forms distributed in packages of antivenin.Since antivenin was not widely used or distributed in this country before 1928, Hutchison's study probably underestimated the incidence of poisonous snakebites.By similar methods, Githens (5) collected information on 2,376 cases of snakebite which occurred in the United States from 1927 through 1934.Thus, before the pres¬ ent study there never had been a systematic, nationwide study of snakebite accidents. Poisonous SnakesOf the species of snakes native to the United States, only about 10 percent are poisonous (6).Snakes of the family Crotalidae (pit vipers) comprise the bulk of these venomous species.Pit vipers native to the United States comprise: Crotahis, or large rattlesnakes, Sistrwrus, or