That journal is published by Wiley Interscience, an extremely reputable agency, so it appears there is more to this than some old wives' tale and a nutbar with a pickup truck.

I got a copy of the paper through the University website (I'm an off-campus PhD student so I have access to their on-line library) and will take a look at it if I get the chance. Not saying I'll be able to, or that I will understand it if I do, but I find this quite fascinating.

Sorry for being so skeptical - well, no, actually I'm not. Scientists are supposed to be skeptical. There's a lot of charlatanry involved in "snakebite medicine", especially in third-world countries, and so before accepting a claim like this at face value, I believe we should demand fairly strong evidence.

A paper published in the Journal of Biochemical and Molecular Toxicology carries a lot more weight with me than "some Italians did a study and found it worked" :-) Hope I didn't offend you, but I'd do the same again, just so you know.

Cheers.