The Hazards of Internet Shopping

scorpion

A 62 yo lady presents to the ER after opening a package containing a coat bought online from Uzbekistan. After trying it on, she immediately feels pain in her left hand. She shakes the coat, and out crawls…

Toxicology Handbook, 2nd Edition

TOX_Handbook_150

For a forthright review of the Toxicology Handbook 2nd edition, the LITFL team turned to an esteemed emergency medicine educator, Dr Trevor Jackson.

MicroGnomic Marine Envenoming

My recent talk on marine envenoming is now alive in blog-post form thanks to the MicroGnome. It gives a brief overview of the clinical aspects of marine envenoming from an Australian perspective.

Paralysis and a head lump

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A 5 year old girl is unable to walk and is becoming progressively weaker. She also complained of a lump on her head. Can you make the diagnosis?

Getting into hot water

With ongoing climate change we may find soon find ourselves getting into hot water — both literally and metaphorico-toxinologically. Sea surface temperature appears to predict the arrival of the box jellyfish at Australia’s tropical beaches.

The Venomous Art of Spitting

thai cobra

Some of the cobras are venom spitters. Targeting the eyes of their enemies they can cause a chemical conjunctivitis and blindness. How do they do this?

Chironex fleckeri envenoming

tox conundrum

Case-based question-and-answers on a near fatal box jellyfish sting. Can you save the day?

Legless Lizard?

Lialis burtonis

If you go to enough talks on snakebite envenoming you’ll be familiar with the part of the talk where the speaker asks:

“How can you tell this is a legless lizard?”

There is always someone who replies:

“Because it doesn’t have legs.”

Snakebite Envenoming Challenge

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So you sailed through the toxidrome challenge did you? How are you with elapids? Let’s see how you fare on the ‘Australian Snakebite Envenoming Challenge’…

How this works: For each of the six types of venomous Australian snake see if you can describe the classic findings for each of the possibly clinical effects listed below – click on the link to show/hide the answer.

Never Kiss a Jellyfish

Never kiss a jellyfish

Although I ‘love’ jellyfish from the point of view of a clinician, I avoid getting close and personal’ with them. Recently I plunged face first into a jellyfish