Wednesday, June 25, 2008

KEBABBLE
Don't be so sniffy about Dr Snake

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JF18Ak01.html

FETHIYE, Turkey - Got a headache? You could take a painkiller or, if you happen to be in the Black Sea town of Kirkpinar between early May and mid June, you could put a snake on your head.

Every country has its share of snake myths. In the United States, some people believe that a woman's birth pains are reduced if she ingests a drink made from the powdered rattle of a rattlesnake. In Thailand, a married couple isn't supposed to see a snake together or the wife will miscarry. And an old English treatment for neck injuries was to draw a live snake across the affected area three times and then bury the snake alive in a bottle.

In Kirkpinar, snakes treat every sort of ailment but are apparently

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especially successful at treating skin conditions such as eczema and psoriasis.

Kirkpinar is a small village near the larger town of Bayburt and some of its female inhabitants make a significant part of their yearly income by hunting and gathering baby snakes as they hatch in mid-May from underground eggs. These snakes are of the natrix (grass snake) genus which live in grasslands near water and are neither aggressive nor venomous.

The snakelets are kept in earth-lined boxes and reared on cow's milk for two months. During this period, sufferers seeking "snake treatments" arrive from all over Turkey. Ten sessions are deemed necessary for a cure and treatment takes place in the grass fields around the village where the afflicted lie down in the sun, fully clothed, and wait.

The charge for a session with a snake is a very reasonable 5 lira (US$4). The reptile is placed onto the affected area and left to its own devices. When (after an average time of 10 minutes) it slithers off the patient, the treatment is deemed to have been completed and the snake is recovered by its keeper before it can escape.

The practice has become so popular there is a festival-like air in town for these six weeks of snake therapy.

Gulfidan Battal is one of the formidable village matrons who goes out snake gathering with their children. Her claims about the healing powers of snakes is vast: "They can treat headaches, neck aches, backaches and stomach aches. I have patients come from all over Turkey, Istanbul, Antalya, Bursa. One of my Istanbul patients has been coming for three years and we healed his foot problem."

These visitors from far-flung regions are put up in the village guesthouse courtesy of the Muhtar (village headman). Of course not everyone can work the snake magic and there are only four snake doctors in the village. Although in previous years the numbers of snake women has been higher, the snake catching needs dedication.

"We wake up before dawn and go out into the hills to catch the snakes before they are too lively," said Gulfidan. "There are not that many snakes and we know where they hatch but we are very careful to return them to this area when their work is done in June."

Levent Kaya is one of the thousands who have arrived in the village over the last month seeking treatment. He has been suffering from headaches and stomach aches for over a year. After just one snake session, he said, "My pain has already lessened."
Haci Canda is the head teacher of the local primary school and has been treating people with snakes for 10 years. "Most people who come to the village feel the benefits of the therapy, there are some who come year on year," said Haci. "Some of these people have never found a doctor who can relieve their pain but after their snake session they tell us they feel better."

Halil Batmaz, 11, helps his mother Gulfiye administer treatment and earns up to 50 lira per day. He says he is happy to be helping the sick.

Osman Bulunmaz, a middle-aged local man explained that in the middle of June the snakes are always released back into the wild. "There are 70 and 80-year olds living in our village and they remember snake treatments taking place when they were children," he said. "No one is really sure how long this has been going on."

There is, however, a local legend that accounts for the snakes' unique properties. In the area where Kirkpinar's springs start there was a mill, and the owner of the mill was a wonderful man. Villagers who bought their wheat to be milled would sit outside and have picnics while they waited for their flour. One day, one of the villagers bought a basket of eggs for everybody to share and he hung the basket on a tree. The next day a young girl came to the mill and wanted an egg. She climbed up the tree so she could reach the basket but, when she inched along the branch and looked inside, the basket was full of snakes. So great was her surprise and fear that she fell from the branch and broke her leg. The miller who had seen all this called forth a curse on the snakes that he had been hand feeding and said: "You must cure the injured or else you will die out." The snakes descended on the little girl and cured her broken leg. And they have been healing the sick ever since.

Of course people have different reactions to the treatment, some improve and some don't. As Osman Bulunmaz puts it, "The snakes are particularly effective in treating disorders like erysipelas [an acute streptococcus bacterial infection of the skin] and other skin conditions that have become infected. We put the snakes on the part of the body that hurts and the torso of the snake takes away the infectious microbes. Then we put the snakes into a natural spring that we have in the village that runs with warm water for six months of the year and cold water for the other six months and clean them."

Dr Koksal Alpay, a professor at the Black Sea Technical University was quick to dismiss this alternative therapy as quackery: "People who believe they are going to get better are psychologically more likely to do exactly that. It's like giving placebos to people who think pills will help them. There's no science behind the snakes just pyscho-suggestion."

But is the doctor's cynicism misplaced? There are other cultures that believe tying a snakeskin around the waist of a woman in labor will ease childbirth and that carrying a snakeskin is generally beneficial to health and effective against headaches and in extracting thorns from the skin. In ancient Greek mythology Aesculapius, the god of medicine, held the snake sacred and it was the emblem of health and recovery. The caduceus, modelled after the mythological staff of Hermes, has become an insignia used by the medical profession and is also a symbol for homeopathic medicine. It is typically depicted as a short staff entwined by two serpents in the form of a double helix.

More recently, in Australia, they have identified a powerful anticoagulant that could one day be used to treat potentially fatal coronary conditions. According to Bryan Fry, deputy director of the Australian Venom Research Unit at the University of Melbourne, "The natural pharmacology that exists within animal venoms is a tremendous resource waiting to be tapped."

In India in August 2007 a team of scientists at the Drug Development Division in the India Institute of Chemical Biology in Kolkata found that proteins present in snake venom can be used to prepare anti-cancer drugs. Contortrostatin, a component found in the venom of copperhead snakes, is being used to attack breast cancer cells and to prevent cancer from spreading.

A Malayan pit viper has yielded a chemical that could treat strokes. Cobra venom is being studied for its use in treating Parkinson's disease. Aggrastat is a super aspirin that prevents blood clots, as some snakebite victims bleed to death because the venom contains anti-clotting proteins. Researchers in Philadelphia isolated one of those proteins from an African Saw-scaled viper. They built the Aggrastat molecule to mimic the venom's anti-clotting effect and the new medicine helps prevent heart attacks.

Closer to the experience in Kirkpinar is what scientists have proved about "snake oil". Snake oil is a traditional Chinese medicine used to treat joint pain. Chinese immigrants to the US introduced its use to the Wild West but, due to grifters peddling fake versions, over time the term became a derogatory nickname for all compounds offered as medicines that were fake and ineffective.

New studies by Dr Richard Kunin in 1989 showed that genuine Chinese snake oil made from Chinese water snakes is very high in EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) - a known pain reliever. EPAs are absorbed through the skin and inhibit the production of inflammatory prostaglandins. Snake oil is widely used in traditional Chinese medicine for relief from arthritis and joint pain. Perhaps the Kirkpinar snakes are also exuding some type of snake oil as they lie on their patients.

Whatever the benefits that snakes bring to their patients, they have certainly benefited the villagers. Not only do they earn a significant income from the treatments, but just five years ago Kirkpinar was a relatively impoverished quarry area where dynamite blasting had nearly wiped out the snake population. Media attention on the unusual medical practices - along with pressure from environmentalists - brought about the introduction of Law 2683 and the area is now a protected region.

Both the snakes and the forty springs that give the village the name of Kirkpinar are now under the jurisdiction of Bayburt's governor who is making efforts to encourage tourism. Perhaps it is best not to be too sniffy and modern about the snakes of Kirkpinar and their uses. After all, most of us in this shiny, technological age are quite happy to take antioxidants and extract of cactus as alternative medicine.

Fazile Zahir is of Turkish descent, born and brought up in London. She moved to live in Turkey in 2005 and has been writing full time since then.

(Copyright 2008 Fazile Zahir.)

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