The South China Morning Post (SCMP) of 23 May 1958 reported:
At the time the Chinese Cobra (Naja atra) was considered a subspecies of the Indian Cobra (Naja naja).
In his entry in Contributions to the History of Herpetology Romer’s family had provided the circumstances of the bite: ‘a supposedly dead Chinese cobra brought in for identification bit Romer on a finger, which required skin grafts and he needed months of recovery’.
In his notebook, Romer later recorded:
An adult male, caught at Tai Po Kau in the New Territories and received from Dr. P. A. M. Van de Linde* on 21st May 1958, bit me on the middle finger of the right hand shortly after its receipt the same day. Only the right fang penetrated the finger. Scales in 21 rows at mid-body. Ventrals 171. Anal 1. Subcaudals 50. Total length 1,330, tail 210 mm. (Scale-counts made and checked by Miss Lo Shum Chung Ngok) Specimen subsequently prepared as complete skeleton. The hood marking was of the binocellate type but incomplete (i.e. interrupted at base).
Three days later, readers of the SCMP were assured by better news :
At the time he was bitten, Romer was in correspondence with Hugh Alistair Reid (1913-1983) about the coverage and advice on snake bite to be included in his guide to the venomous snakes of Hong Kong. Alistair Reid was then at the General Hospital in Penang, Malaya and establishing himself as a world expert on snake venoms and the treatment of those bitten.
On 9 June he wrote to Reid:
I am at present in hospital, having been bitten by a large Naja naja in the middle finger of my right hand. Although only the right fang penetrated my finger, it was a deliberate and forceful bite and probably involved a fair quantity of venom. You will be interested to hear that there was a complete absence of neurotoxic effects but a very great deal of local reaction and tissue damage. There was tremendous swelling Involving the entire hand and arm up to the shoulder. The finger itself 1s very badly affected, and there is a hard black necrotic area starting behind the nail and extending right along the upper surface. There are also two fairly large scars on the dorsum of the hand where two blisters were cut. The future of the bitten finger is still uncertain, and apparently depends on its condition after sloughing and of of the damage. Regarding treatment, I applied a rubber tourniquet within a minute or two of the bite and was given Haffkine polyvalent serum within about half an hour. I believe I had in all between 60 and 80 c.c. of this serum, but am very doubtful that it had any beneficial effect. It was necessary for multiple punctures to be made on the dorsum of the hand to relieve swelling. They also gave me cortisone or hydrocortisone (sorry I do not know which). I am afraid that, not being a medical man, the above information is not very specific but trust that it will of some interest.
Local necrosis is recognised as a major effect of being bitten by a Chinese Cobra. The extent of the damage and the resulting scars were still obvious when John Romer showed me his hand over seven years later. His office, as well as the live Bamboo Pit Viper, had the prepared skeleton of the offending but unfortunate Chinese Cobra.
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| Juvenile Chinese Cobra, Lantau, Hong Kong, 2011 Photograph by Thomas Brown on Flickr |
*Patrick van de Linde was a government medical officer who went on to study the cholera outbreaks of 1961 and 1963. He is remembered as a medical officer in the British Army Aid Group (BAAG) which operated in China to assist those escaping from occupied Hong Kong and to gather intelligence. Commanded by Lindsay Ride, Professor of Physiology in the University of Hong Kong, who had been in charge of a field ambulance during the battle of Hong Kong and who had escaped captivity, the BAAG provided medical services to the civilian population and Chinese guerillas operating against the Japanese. Colonel Ride, later Vice-Chancellor of HKU and knighted, wrote:
This officer was posted as MO i/c Advanced HQs in Nov 1943 and remained there from that time till the Japanese surrender. The Chinese forces in that area were notoriously badly off for any sort of medical service and Major Van De Linde readily put all his energy into setting up a scheme to supply their needs; medical posts were established and staffed in guerilla areas and two hospitals were run in Waichow. To these hospitals - the only ones in that area - came all the Chinese sick and wounded from the East River forces as well as all the civilian air raid casualties. In addition to this Major Van de Linde undertook the intensive work necessitated by a cholera epidemic and a famine. Working long hours under most primitive conditions he was responsible for saving the lives of scores of Chinese, both soldiers and civilians.
For 2 years without a rest of any sort Major Van de Linde gave the whole of his time and unbounded energy for the benefit of the needy and the suffering and in order to increase the value of his services he, at the same time, mastered the Cantonese language. This exemplary devotion to duty not only saved many lives but it paved the way towards the successful conclusion of many intricate negotiations with the Chinese concerning BAG operations.
See Gwulo.
Anon. 2007. Romer, J.D. (1920-1982). In Contributions to the History of Herpetology (Volume 2), Edited by Kraig Adler, p 212. Society for the Study of Reptiles and Amphibians.
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