According to his coworkers , Edward Horatio Girling did not have much experience handling snakes when he took a job as a zookeeper at the London Zoological Gardens in 1852âwhich might help explain his apparent ignorance about the effects of mixing alcohol and venomous snakes. Namely, a fatal bite.
Let's back up. According to a paper published several years ago in the journal Anaesthesia and Intensive Care (and quoted from here ), Girling spent the night of October 19, 1852 celebrating a boozy goodbye to a friend leaving for Australia:
Unfortunately, Girling didn't work with hummingbirdsâhe worked with serpents. Stewart found his friend gallivanting about the reptile house with the not-super-deadly Morocco Snake in his hands.
But the dangerous revelry didn't end there. Stewart had returned to the hummingbirds when he heard Girling cry "Now for the cobra!" Back at the reptile house, Stewart watched helplessly as Girling put the cobra into his waistcoat. From there, the snake coiled around the inebriated man's body and when Girling tried to grab a hold of him, the snake bit him five times on the nose.
Girling was rushed to the nearby University College Hospital, but by the time he got there, his head had swollen and his face had turned black. Thirty-five minutes after arriving, the zookeeper was declared dead. And although the doctors were able to study the infected blood for the sake of medical improvement, let this stand as an important warning: Never handle cobras while intoxicated.
[ h/t History Weird ]
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