Venomous Encounters: Snakes, Vivisection and Scientific Medicine in Colonial Australia by Peter Hobbins (review)

The book under review presents fascinating new research on a relatively unexplored theme that has historically evoked very strong reactions across the globe. Representing the first full-length work on snakes and their perception in the antipodes, Peter Hobbins paints an evocative picture of the visceral fear that snakes generated among early settlers, despite the fact that the incidence of deaths due to snake-bites was relatively insignificant. Indeed, this fear of snakes was so great as to turn them into metonyms for settlers' relationship with the region's non-human population.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the book is its discussion of the vivisectionist experiments which, especially during the period of early colonialism (i.e. between the 1840s and 1880s), were carried out by popular healers in full public view. These experiments often involved transferring venom into other non-human species, chiefly dogs, and the drama involved in such exercises has been captured well by Hobbins. These "entertainers" would often threaten, for example, to inject themselves with venom, which invariably led to full-throated appeals from onlookers to not do so. Charles Underwood was one of the most famous practitioners of this public art, but others such as Joseph Shires are also explored in the book. In discussing these events, Hobbins makes the significant claim that, whereas vivisection is often seen as an art that – partly due to the fear of attracting popular outrage – had to be practiced within the isolated confines of the scientific laboratory, this was decidedly not the case everywhere across the world. At least in the Australian case, it is clear that the public was goading vivisectionists into carrying out their experiments.

In this context, the differences between state attitudes in Australia and Britain also assume some significance. It is well known that voices against cruelty toward animals became strident in Britain by the second half of the nineteenth century. Australia, on the other hand, did not see an anti-vivisectionist movement of comparable magnitude and, even though the first animal protection legislation was passed in Victoria in 1883, it did not lead to any real restriction on scientific experiments. Indeed, many vivisectionists continued to carry out their trials without necessarily possessing a license.

Though the discussion on public vivisection is the most interesting part of the book, Hobbins also devotes considerable space toward examining experiments with antivenins in scientific laboratories. In doing this, he highlights the changing nature of experiments over the course of the nineteenth century, and the shifts in the dominant cures for snakebites advocated by scientific authorities. He presents us, for example, with a detailed picture of the way in which the emphasis shifted from ammonia, to strychnine, to immunization using small doses of the cobra venom.

The book also makes the argument that scientific "peripheries" were often quite autonomous of the research agenda being set in the metropoles. In fact, quite often it was the interaction between various scientific peripheries that proved to be more influential. Interestingly, Hobbins points not only toward instances of collaboration, but also rivalry between scientists working in various colonies. In the particular context of antivenin research, the book paints a detailed picture of the rivalry between those working in India and Australia.

These are all significant issues that the book brings out with great clarity. However, one also gets the impression that it did not fully live up to the promises made in the introduction. The issue of animals as "actants" in their own right – an argument that is increasingly made within animal humanities – is, for example, not a prominent part of the discussion that follows the introduction. Similarly, the interaction between indigenous experts and professional scientific authorities does not come across with clarity. To be fair, Hobbins does point towards several cases of interdependence between them, but the book would have gained much from a more concerted effort to do this. Most...