• teyrnon@sh.itjust.works
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    13 hours ago

    I forget the exact statistic, but it’s like a spoonful of botulism toxin can kill millions of people. It really is potent.

    But the difference between poison/toxin and medicine is often just dosage. There are myriad, countless medicines to discover in toxins. The toxin of an animal for instance a snake, is not one toxin, it’s hundreds, each with individual action.

    There is a reason the ancient greek symbol for medicine has two snakes on it. Anyway here’s an old article on it in case anyone is interested.

    https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/how-harnessing-the-powers-of-venom-could-lead-to-new-medicines

    *This is not the article I originally read as that was easily ten years prior but search engines and enshitified and have decided this is the closest they will give me.

    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      There’s only one snake on the medicine symbol. The two snake version is the one that represents Hermes. Everything else you said is correct though