Saving Lives: Queensland Museum Collections

The Queensland Museum has, since its inception, served as the expert consultant to the hospitals of Queensland regarding poisoning and envenomation by poisonous animals. Staff of Entomology, Arachnology, Marine Biology, Herpetology and Mammalogy Sections are all consultants to the Queensland Poisons Information Centre (phone: 131 126) at the Royal Children's Hospital, Brisbane. This centre provides 24-hour emergency advice to northern Australia, the south-central Pacific and Papua New Guinea for difficult cases of snakebite, spider bite, marine stings and other stings, and a range of encounters with 'problem' creatures. The variety of human-animal interactions is almost infinite and it is only in a museum, with its repository of both broad and detailed knowledge, that such expert help regarding the animals can be found. Queensland Museum staff are often required to identify the snakes, scorpions, spiders, sea urchins, caterpillars and 'bugs' responsible for the hospitalisation of people around the state.

This life-saving service is always given free and, although it can never appear on the credit side of an accountant's ledger, its priceless value is in the lives of those saved by the input of specialist zoological knowledge. This valuable and traditional consultancy service also has a research component. Curatorial staff of the Museum's reptile section have collaborated extensively in work on human clinical envenomations. Publications of such work are used by doctors in many parts of the world in their own assessment and management of envenomed victims. Textbooks on human toxinology by Museum staff, in collaboration with clinicians, are consulted in all accident and emergency rooms and intensive care wards of Australian hospitals.

Snakebite is common in Australia. More than 3000 cases are reported annually. A recent 10-year study of child victims traced 250 hospital admissions for snakebite in south-eastern Queensland alone. The world's most venomous snakes are found in Australia, and Queensland is home to many of these, including the Western Taipan (Oxyuranus microlepidotus), which has the most toxic terrestrial snake venom known. (This species has been the subject of long-term research by the Queensland Museum.) A reference collection of both 'type' and general specimens of such snakes is a vital resource in the management of human snakebite.

An accurate specific identification of a snake responsible for a bite is important because specific antivenom can be administered to the victim. This has two critical implications. First, an ampoule of polyvalent antivenom (a cocktail of separate antivenoms) costs $1600 in Australia, compared to $300 to $800 (depending on the species of snake) for an ampoule of specific antivenom. As many victims of snakebite require up to eight ampoules of antivenom, the cost-saving if the snake can be identified accurately is significant. Second, a serious side effect from the use of antivenom is serum sickness, the severity depending on how much antivenom is needed. If the snake is identified accurately, then the amount of horse serum (antivenom) that has to be injected is much less and the resulting complications are also less.