From Wall St Journal via San Diego Union Tribune :
Method of treating cobra bites draws contention in India
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
November 27, 2007
MUSHARI, India – A five-foot monocled cobra slithered through a throng of barefoot children one afternoon recently. Not even the toddlers recoiled in fear.
“We sleep with the snakes, we eat with the snakes, we live with the snakes here,” shouted 14-year-old Chinmoy Mahji proudly. “We are not scared.”
Talk about a snake pit. The deadly serpents are everywhere in Mushari and its three adjoining villages, set amid muddy ponds and rice fields on the hot Bengali plains northwest of Calcutta.
Samir Chatterjee, a school headmaster, says that according to his census, more than 3,000 cobras live in Choto Pashla, one of the three hamlets that abut Mushari. “Whenever I lie down in my bed, a cobra will just slide on top of me, without hurting me,” boasts Narottom Sain, a Mushari village leader.
While Sain has yet to be bitten, many others are not so lucky. The area's chief Hindu priest, Shyamal Chakraborty, says that several villagers are attacked by cobras every month.
What to do when that happens is a matter of contention here, as India's ancient ways and taboos clash with slowly encroaching modernity. Snakebites are a serious problem in India: According to estimates cited by the World Health Organization, serpent attacks kill as many as 50,000 Indians each year.
Compounding the problem is the widespread belief in the snakes' divine powers, and a religious prohibition on harming the deadly reptiles. The cobra, in particular, occupies a hallowed place in the Hindu religion.
According to legend widely believed here in Mushari, the monocled cobras – black serpents with a clear circle on their hoods – first settled in the area in 911, on the orders of the snake goddess Manasa.
The reptiles, one of a number of cobra species that live in India, are revered as incarnations of gods. Only Brahmins – members of Hinduism's priestly caste – are allowed to touch them. With the cult attracting thousands of pilgrims, Mushari's priests are eager to maintain their authority.
“If you don't visit the doctor and just come to us, the bite will be cured in two, three days,” explains Chakraborty's son Nayan, a saffron-clad priest, as he plays with a hissing cobra on the village square. “We tell people that if you don't listen to god and go to a hospital, it's at your own risk.”
These religious taboos – and faith in the priests' magical powers – are slowly beginning to crumble. Facing the prospect of death after a bite, some villagers are opting for more conventional medicine. One such snakebite victim is Malati Dhara, a young woman who was attacked by a cobra as she watered her garden last year.
At first, Dhara tried to follow the old custom. She called on Chakraborty, the chief priest, and spent the first hours after the bite applying mud and chanting. Feeling her body go rigid, Dhara asked to be rushed to the nearest hospital. There, she was injected with a broad-spectrum anti-venom.
“A cobra is highly neurotoxic, and no one will survive without the antidote if the poison is properly injected,” says Indranil Banerjee, the emergency medical officer at the Burdwan hospital. “I see this often. After being treated by witch doctors, people come here too late and just die.”
Dhara's near-death experience – and rapid recovery after the antidote – dented somewhat the priestly authority in the area. Other villagers have since gone to the hospital with snakebites.
Still, the age-old taboos aren't quite dead. Dhara's mother-in-law, stepped into a crowd to break up the conversation about the snakes. “We have to follow our traditions and go to the priests when the snakes bite,” she insisted. “Their rituals are the only cure.”
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