Do not drink and handle snakes

Check out this scientific paper, published in the journal Anaesthesia and Intensive Care, called “Joseph Clover and the cobra: a tale of snake envenomation and attempted resuscitation with bellows in London, 1852.” (full text available here):

The Industrial Revolution saw the creation of many new jobs, but probably none more curious than that of zookeeper. The London Zoological Gardens, established for members in 1828, was opened to the general public in 1847. In 1852 the “Head Keeper in the Serpent Room,” Edward Horatio Girling, spent a night farewelling a friend departing for Australia. He arrived at work in an inebriated state and was bitten on the face by a cobra that he was handling in a less than sensible manner…

On the night of 19 October 1852, Girling was out drinking with a friend who was moving to Australia. Together with Edward Stewart, a temporary employee of the zoo, they stayed up all night, having three pints of beer at the friend’s house before moving to a pub in Shoe Lane where they drank quarters of gin until eight in the morning.

From there it was straight to work where Edward Stewart, presumably still inebriated from the night before, was occupied in the relative safety of the hummingbird enclosure. But, once he had gathered up a basket of sparrows for the snake house, he went there to find Girling in “an excited state.”

Girling, emboldened by gin, had walked past the railing in the reptile house and proceeded to lift out a Morocco Snake from its glass-fronted cage. Despite the protests of his friend, he draped this snake around the unfortunate Stewart, crying “I am inspired!” His friend bent down, protesting that the snake would bite him at any moment.

Girling relented and put the snake back where it belonged. Stewart went about his work only to hear his friend cry “Now for the cobra”–a statement which must have chilled him into instant sobriety. Unable to stop his friend, he watched horrified as Girling took hold of the snake and put it under his waistcoat.

The snake coiled around Girling’s waist, came out the front and, as Girling took hold of its body, struck him in the middle of his face. Stewart fled in search of help while Girling managed to return the cobra to the safety of its cage and wash his bleeding face before being bundled into a cab and taken to University College Hospital.

Less than an hour after arriving at the hospital, he was dead.

All this is a very long-winded way of making the following public service announcement: Do not drink and handle snakes.