The Cure Inside the Venom

At the Butantan Institute in São Paulo, Brazil, technicians carefully milk venom from pit vipers and coral snakes — drop by deadly drop. That venom, which kills hundreds of people across South America every year, becomes the essential ingredient in antivenin. The very substance that destroys life is processed, purified, and injected back into the bloodstream to save it. The cure could never come from anywhere else.…