The Antivenom

Every year at the Australian Reptile Park in Gosford, New South Wales, handlers carefully grip the heads of eastern brown snakes and taipans — two of the deadliest serpents on earth — and press their fangs against collection vials. Drop by drop, the venom flows out. It is painstaking, dangerous work. But that harvested poison becomes the raw material for antivenom, the only treatment that can save a snakebite victim from certain death.…