Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)As I was digging through old boxes, crates and such in our attack a few days ago, this book was found at the bottom of one of the many containers of books we have. I went into an instant nostalgia trance when I opened its covers.
This work was first published in 1962 under the direction of the Office of Naval Intelligence and the Office of Chief of Naval Operations. It was widely distributed throughout all of the armed forces at that time around the world and was to be used and intended as training aid and as identification guide to the most widely distributed species of dangerously venomous snakes in the world.
This manual was updated and reprinted in 1965 (the copy being reviewed here) with more emphasis placed on the venomous snakes of S.E. Asia...for obvious reasons. The text from the original was updated when necessary but many to most of the illustrations were retained for this "new" version.
This work breaks the distribution of these venomous reptiles into 10 geographical areas with a separate chapter covering the sea snakes.
Along with identification data there are chapters on General Information, Precautions to Avoid Snakebite, How to Recognize Venom Poisoning, First Aid, Medical Treatment, Antivenin Sources, a very nice Glossary and a extensive list of general references.
Now for a government/military manual I have to admit that this one is not all that bad. It of course does not cover all species in the category of Poisonous Snakes, but it does cover all of the major ones. Descriptions of each species is pretty good...on a scale of 1 - 10 I would give it about an 8. One of the biggest problems with the book is that all of the photographs, with the exception of about 20, are in black and white and are of very low quality; even for the day and time they were used. I can assure you from practical experience and first hand knowledge that it would and was quite impossible to identify many of these reptiles using the pictures provided alone.
There is also a bit of a problem with distribution of species and if this work is checked against other works the reader will find several areas of disagreement. Who to believe? Good question.
I do not in anyway mean this to be a disparaging comment against anyone, but using this particular manual as a teaching aid was quite difficult. To reap the full benefit from its contents a good working knowledge of Latin is needed and some of the scientific terms used were more difficult to explain to the people being trained than it was worth. A working knowledge of anatomy, snake anatomy was essential. As an example:
Part of the description of the St. Lucia Serpent, Bothrops caribbaeus includes "Head dark gray with a postorbital band that extends across the upper edge of the supralabilas......"
To explain this to an 18 year old high school graduate or less, with no training in anatomy what so ever, much less Latin, is difficult to the extreme. This particular snake did not have a photograph. Another description, this time of a Crotalidae: Genus Bothrops, reads "....Head brown with a distinctive marking on the crown. About 20 pairs of rounded lateral markings shaped like a French telephone whose apices nearly meet on the dorsal midline....."
Just to give yourself a quick test, off the top of your head, give me the definition of: subelliptical, preocular, ventgrals, subcaudals, rostal, prefrontal, canthus, cylindrical....no googling!
Do you see the problem? Here you have a kid that in a few weeks is going to be going through what will be the most traumatic experience of his life and you are trying to tell him what a French telephone is like and why he needs to know that in relationship to something that can bite and kill him.
Anyway, there is a wealth on information in this work of 212 pages which is good. I certainly do not recommend this one for purchase if your purpose is to learn more about snakes, poisonous or other wise, but I am giving this one five stars simply because it is an important historical work and for the time and place, they did try their best.
For those interested in such matters, this is a must for your collection.
Don Blankenship
The Ozarks
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