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Henson: Fortunately.  You've never had much contact with people who actually do the handling--you know, down South--of poisonous snakes? There are some people, sects--the people handle them?

Mann: Well, I never did.  I've been to these places where they collect snake serum.  That's terrifying.  There's that place in Florida--what's his name, Bill [William E. Haast].  Anyway I've seen him collect cobra venom.  He'll get this big cobra to stand up and spread its hood, and then he'll grab it just below the hood and close the hood, push his hand up until the hood closes and he has the snake firmly by the neck, and has it bite through a piece of rubber stretched over a glass.  Of course he has been bitten several times.

Henson:  Oh, yes, that would be almost bound to occur.

Mann: Yes.  There's a place outside of Rio in Brazil, and another one outside of Bangkok, and I watched them there.  In Bangkok at that time if a native got bitten handling a snake, nobody made a big fuss over him, they fined him.  That was a misdemeanor to let the snake bite you.

Henson: You're kidding.  That is strange.

Mann: Of course they had the serum right there.  I never heard of anybody at one of those places actually dying, but that was true that they did fine them.  It showed they'd been careless.