Snakes, fear

As depicted, he was said to have three heads, one human and the others of a bull and a ram. He also has the feet of a goose and a snake for a tail. In some depictions, he appears to be riding another beast. The grimoires, however, say that he is not to be feared. If one addresses him properly he will provide a beautiful ring, and then teach geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and engineering, as well as the art of being invisible, and the location of hidden treasure.3... 

The threatening events that cause us to be scared fall into two classes those that are innate (i.e., we are born with them) and those that are learned. We seem to have an innate sense of fear to some situations—that is, we are sometimes scared of things even if we ve never experienced them before or if they have never threatened us in the past. For example, many people are afraid of the dark, even if they have never had a bad experience in the dark. Some scientists believe that we have an innate fear of certain shapes, like the shape of a snake. 

Animal phobias These often involve an intense fear of spiders, snakes, rodents, dogs, or any other animal stimulus. Although there is some natural and adaptive inclination to be scared of spiders, snakes, and certain other animals, since they might be poisonous or pose some other health threat, the phobic person has an exfreme/y intense and inappropriate fear of these stimuli. 

The person might exhibit fear responses simply when he or she imagines the stimuli. The person will take extreme precautions to avoid encountering these animals. For example, a person with a phobia of snakes might refuse to go hiking or even to walk around a grassy backyard. 

Seeing a captive snake behind glass at a zoo might produce a severe physiological fear reaction in phobic individuals, while most of us recognize that such a situation is not dangerous, and do not experience a fear reaction. 

Formerly called simple phobia, specific phobia is a marked, excessive, or unreasonable and persistent fear of a specific object or situation (e g., snakes, heights, thunderstorms). Exposure to the phobic stimulus provokes immediate and intense anxiety that the individual recognizes as excessive or unreasonable. The degree of impairment frequently depends on whether the feared object or situation is commonly encountered or can be easily avoided. The diagnosis should only be made if avoidant behavior interferes with the person s normal routine, social activities, or relationships, or if there is marked distress about having the fear. Differential diagnosis may include the following ... 

Phobias such as the fear of snakes, closed-in spaces, heights, and so on, are generally considered to be associated either with age-appropriate fears (fears that subside with maturation) or conditioned responses. There is little evidence that these disorders are due to biological dysfunction, and medication treatment is generally not warranted. 

Several snake species contributed the venom used by the Scythians, including the steppe viper Vipera ursinii renardi, the Caucasus viper Vipera kasnakovi, the European adder Vipera berus, and the long-nosed or sand viper Vipera ammodytes transcaucasiana. In ancient India, one of the most feared poisons was derived from the rotting flesh and venom of the white-headed Purple Snake, described by the natural historian Aelian (third century ad). His detailed description suggests that the Purple Snake was the rare. 

Conditioned fear offers a view of the subtlety of design. Monkeys have no innate fear of snakes or flowers, but life-long fear is conditioned by a single observation of other monkeys expressing fear of snakes. There is no such similar prepared fear of flowers (Mineka et al 1980). 

The repeated words fear and snake and the synonym reptile help tie one sentence to another so that the reader may follow the ideas easily. 

Specific phobias are perhaps the most familiar of the anxiety disorders, and are char-, acterized by a disproportionate fear of an object (e.g., spider, snake) or situation (e.g., flying, receiving an injection). When the stimulus is confronted it elicits an intense anxiety reaction, which the sufferer recognizes to be excessive but is unable to moderate. Prophylactic use of anxiolytics for predictably stressful situations is helpful, but in the longterm, medication is less successful than behavioral therapy in the treatment of specific phobias. 

Snakes seem to inspire either awe or fear. They hiss, they slither, they rattle, they don t hlink, they shed their skin and do dozens of other things that are disturhing to see. A few species can puff themselves up and others can play dead. Some have horns or odd protrusions and worst of all, their venom can cause severe pain or death within minutes when sprayed or injected through their needle-sharp fangs. For many of us, this one attrihute alone is the stuff of nightmares. 

Avoiding the quicksand of insecurity and the snake pit of depression are challenges you must confront getting to the bottom of your deepest fears and complicated psyche is another. 

Snakes are amongst the most feared of aU creatures simply because a handful of species are lethal to humans. It is perhaps a forhmate quirk of evolution that snakes strike fear into us, because this means that we leave them alone. On the other hand some harmless snakes, for example the Common Water Snake (Nerodia sipedon) from north America, are killed because they look like dangerous species (in this case the dreaded Water Moccasin or Cottonmouth Agkistrodon piscivorus)). This is an unfortimate quirk of evolution, because the Brown Water Snake has evolved to mimic the dangerous Water Moccasin in the hope of frightening away potential predators. The outcome, however, as far as humans are concerned, is quite the opposite. 

A. Determine whether the bite was by an indigenous (wild) species or an exotic zoo animal or illegally imported pet. (The owner of an illegal pet snake may be reluctant to admit this for fear of fines or confiscation.) Envenomation occurring during the fall and winter months (October-March) when snakes usually hibernate is not likely to be caused by a wild species. 

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