Just a correction to my previous post, about how vitamin c works.

No studies have been done as far as I know of concerning the use of vitamin c and snake bite so the mechanism can only be theorised. I was talking to a doctor yesterday, who is much more knowledgable than myself, <img src="/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" /> and he said that the ascorbic acid (vitamin c) would not digest the venom but must be somehow de-activating it also.

Nicodemus, thanks for the info it sounds curious. At least one of the Oaklahoma State Medical Association studies was partially envolving brown recluse spider bite as well. The Mennonites in our area used cattle prods to treat these bites with great sucess.

Also I saw a program on discovery years ago about a rattlesnake roundup in texas where one of the guys got bitten. They showed the paramedics outside with a stun gun shocking him well around the bite. The next day he was back at the roundup with very little wrong with him.