Dangerous bites: Snakes, environmental encounter and biomedicine in Colonial Taiwan

This paper argues that the presence and actions of venomous snakes helped to shape the image, policy and trajectory of the environment of Taiwan under the Japanese rule (1895-1945). Venomous snakes challenged the natural and colonial order that the Japanese colonial government intended to impose on Taiwan-with the goal of managing its natural resources and organising its sociopolitical order. The perceived epidemic of snakebites or envenoming thus became a scientific topic for institutionalised research and an environmental and biomedical problem to be solved. The paper goes on to examine the development of snake antivenom in Taiwan in the global context of scientific colonialism and medical science. Venom and serum research emerged as an important research field in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Scientific centres in Europe, colonies in warm climates and aspiring nations practising creole science all played a significant role in developing antivenom. Animals-including snakes, laboratory animals, and large mammals in serum production-were vital actors in the process. This historical episode demonstrates the importance of animal history to environmental history, the history of science and the history of colonialism.