What Does A Scorpion Tattoo Mean?

What Does A Scorpion Tattoo Mean

What does a scorpion tattoo mean? The scorpion tattoo meaning represents intimidation and fear like an expression of great strength, the ability to control and protect oneself, loyalty, and powerful sexuality.

What do scorpions symbolize in tattoos?

The Scorpion as a Symbol of Strength As such, some of the meanings associated with the scorpion include intimidation, fear, toughness, strength, danger, death, defensiveness, and evil.

What does a scorpion tattoo mean on a woman?

Scorpion Tattoo Meanings –

  • When mating, the male scorpion does a seductive sex dance to impress the female. A scorpion tattoo can represent male sexuality and arousal.
  • Tribal scorpion tattoos are said to protect against evil spirits.
  • A scorpion tattoo on a woman could symbolize strength and the ability to take on anyone regardless of their size, status, or position. This is because even though the scorpion is small, it is not afraid to fight and defend itself.
  • A scorpion and rose tattoo represents two living things that are not to be judged by their covers. The scorpion is small, yet intimidating, and the rose is beautiful, but can hurt someone with its thorns. Both the scorpion and the rose should be admired from a distance. Getting a tattoo with a scorpion and rose means that you are someone who cannot be judged and that people should be wary when trying to get close to you, either physically or spiritually.
  • A scorpion tattoo in the gay community is a symbol that the wearer is HIV-positive.
  • A Russian scorpion tattoo could mean a number of things depending on how the scorpion is depicted. If the claws are open, the scorpion tattoo represents a Special Forces member who has seen combat. A scorpion might also indicate that the wearer has spent time in prison (done time in the box). The scorpion may also be a symbol of drug addiction. If the stinger is up, it means that the wearer is still using drugs.
  • Many people choose the scorpion because it is their Zodiac sign, and there are a number of specific meanings associated with the Scorpio.
  • If the tattoo is worn by a Cuban or Mexican gang member, it indicates that the wearer is a contract killer or enforcer. It is thought that the number of squares that make up the tail of the scorpion indicates how many people that person has killed.

What Does A Scorpion Tattoo Mean.

What is the meaning of a scorpion?

Scorpion Symbolism & Spiritual Meanings Of Scorpions – Scorpions are symbols of protection, transformation, independence, solitude, and intelligence. But scorpions are a symbol of death and rebirth, a symbol of power, and also represent lust, sex and fertility.

  1. While, yes, some scorpions have venom that can kill humans, many cultures believed that scorpions could heal, helping a person start their life over when on the brink of death;
  2. Because scorpions are known to use their stingers for both protection and hunting, and are usually on the defensive, they’ve come to represent the ability to safeguard oneself;

RELATED: Snake Symbolism & Spiritual Meanings Of Seeing Snakes.

Is a scorpion a good tattoo?

Scorpions have become the desired symbol for men to tattoo because of the meanings associated with these arachnids. They can represent intimidation and fear, and they certainly have that effect when inked in a large design on a man’s body. Or they can symbolize strength, loyalty, and protection.

What tattoo symbolizes fearless?

Dagger Tattoo – Credit: @cado. tattoo Daggers often represent notions like danger, violence, loss, or betrayal. Historically, major events (like murders, for example, originating from the Victorian era), have been done with daggers. A bloody dagger generally symbolizes betrayal and murder.

  1. However, daggers also symbolize courage and fearlessness;
  2. That is because to use a dagger means one is not afraid of close combat;
  3. For that reason, many people looking to display their own bravery go for dagger tattoos, or even dagger charms and talismans;

Because daggers are short knives, they are often only applied for humans; this also deepens the symbolism of courage needed to win against people who do not wish you well. Dagger tattoos are known to be done in either a Victorian style or sometimes even the Middle Eastern or African style. Here are some of our top picks for dagger tattoos you can use for inspiration; Credit: @beardedgentleman Credit: @tattooist_solar Credit: @constantxgrind Credit: @_coffindragger_ Credit: @outofstepbooks.

What does the Bible say about scorpions?

THE Bible tells us that Christ Jesus once said to his disciples unequivocally, “Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you. ”1 Was this intended to apply only to Jesus’ immediate disciples and to sensational experiences like treading on serpents and scorpions? A lot of people take this view and feel that it would be presumptuous for us to aspire to such dominion and freedom.

But others have found that Jesus’ promises do apply to everyone, throughout all time, and that no circumstance is too small to prove it. Such proof does require more, however, than just repeating the Master’s words in a ritualistic fashion.

We have to grasp something of the teachings that underlie the promises and adopt this spiritual standpoint more completely in everything we think and do. Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered and founded Christian Science, writes: “Understanding spiritual law and knowing that there is no material law, Jesus said: `These signs shall follow them that believe,.

they shall take up serpents, andif they drink any deadly thing, it shallnot hurt them. They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. ”’ She later adds: “Jesus’ promise is perpetual. Had it been given only to his immediate disciples, the Scriptural passage would read you, not they.

”2 A young man proved something of this for himself one day when he was dismantling some steel shelving. There was a collapse, and his hand was partially caught between two girders that closed on it with a pincer motion. At first the pain was intense, but as he extricated himself and turned his thought away from the physical injury, he prayed for reassurance.

  • Then the Saviour’s words “Nothing shall by any means hurt you” came to him with new meaning;
  • He remembered that someone had once told him that an understanding of this promise can be the most powerful pain-killer there is;

He was a student of Christian Science and had previously experienced and witnessed a number of spiritual healings. As he pondered Jesus’ assurance and walked away from the scene, the pain subsided within seconds. After a few minutes of being quietly grateful, he felt the pain stop completely.

He looked at the hand, saw it was gashed, and wrapped it up. Then he felt confident enough to continue carefully with the job. After a few days the hand was healed with not a mark left. He was also in a better mental state than he had enjoyed for some time, as well as being more than ever convinced that the Bible promises are meant for us too.

Jesus supremely embodied the Christly power, but that doesn’t mean his work was miraculous and unrepeatable. He expected his followers to be able to heal too. And he urged the people who came to him for healing to be fearless, trusting, and expectant. One point that Jesus stressed was that we are all, in truth, the sons and daughters of God.

  1. And because God’s offspring express His perfect nature, we are not actually the weak and suffering mortals we sometimes seem to be;
  2. Christian Science teaches that our true being as God’s child is in reality spiritual and perfect, notmaterial at all, and a growing perception of this fact underlies healing through spiritual means;

But an understanding of this isn’t just something to “turn on” when danger threatens. We have to learn to know more of what the children of God know and act more the way His sons and daughters act. What does this entail? It means among other things expressing more consistently the spiritual qualities that so distinguished the character of Jesus, such as wisdom, strength, love.

And above all, we must seek the humility which realizes that the healing power, as well as any other power for good we have, comes from God, and not from any human ability of our own. Understanding this makes it possible to prove this power progressively in our lives, no matter how harsh circumstances may seem to be.

And each added proof, however small, helps to make our spiritual conviction deeper and more unassailable. 1Luke 10:19. 2Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 328. You can find more articles like this one in the Christian Science Sentinel, a weekly magazine.

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What does the scorpion mean in Egyptian?

The ancient Egyptians knew the scorpion and its toxicity, and venerated it since pre-dynastic era. They used the scorpion as a king’s name, a name of a nome (county), and a symbol to their goddess, Serqet, that protects the body and the viscera of the dead, and that accompanies them in their journey to the afterlife.

What does the scorpion symbolize in Mexican culture?

DURANGO, Mexico —  Enrique Hernandez and two of his brothers are on the hunt, armed with 8-inch tweezers and a plastic jar. They poke boldly through the rubble in an empty lot behind their house and soon snatch the day’s first trophy: a writhing, 2-inch-long scorpion.

  1. Within half an hour, they’ve trapped 30 of the golden arachnids, whose slender pincers belie the ferocity of their sting;
  2. This species, Centruroides suffusus, can kill a child and inflict vicious pain on adults;

The eight Hernandez brothers have followed in their father’s footsteps as alacraneros, or scorpion hunters, catching thousands of the creatures each summer. Most are mounted on the key rings, ashtrays, napkin holders and wall clocks that clutter the stalls of Durango’s city market, a famed scorpion souvenir center.

Some of the catch is sold for scientific research. This flourishing industry is just one facet of Mexico’s fear of and fascination with the scorpion, which predate the Spanish conquest in 1521. No wonder: About 200,000 people get stung each year, and scores die.

Scorpions, almost unchanged in 450 million years, remain a source of widespread anxiety as well as a serious health scourge. In recent years, Mexicans have counterattacked on multiple fronts. A relentless public health campaign has dramatically reduced the death rate, and a new Mexican-made antivenin serum is so effective that U.

doctors want to import it. Cutting-edge Mexican research could even put the scorpion’s venom to work fighting malaria in years to come. Nowhere is the rich and complex scorpion culture as pervasive as in Durango, the northwestern state of which this city is the capital.

The soccer team is named the Scorpions, and a scorpion grabs your cursor when you sign on to the official state Web site. In fact, the figures don’t bear out the reputation. The city’s 550,000 people suffer about 2,000 stings a year, a fraction of the number reported in some states.

  • And nobody died of a scorpion sting last year in Durango state;
  • Fatalities are far more common in Guerrero and other Pacific Coast states such as Nayarit, Jalisco and Colima;
  • But Durango’s fame is unshakable, thanks in part to legends like that of “the death cell;

” The story has it that in 1884, a man named Juan was unfairly jailed in Durango for accidentally killing a woman. He was put in the death cell, where no one had survived a single night because of a monster scorpion. The valiant Juan caught the “killer scorpion of the death cell” and survived.

He was then pardoned and set free. The tale is recounted by Betty Grace Santiesteban, a Durango city woman who went through her own ordeal thanks to scorpions. Her older brother almost died as a child from a scorpion sting.

She later moved into a house on a hill overlooking Durango where scorpions thrived. She recalls killing 100 or so in two years in her home. “One kept me awake in my bedroom until 4 a. This tiny thing was dominating my life,” she says. To overcome her fears, Santiesteban began learning about scorpions, gathering facts about the dangers, the symptoms of stings and the safeguards, “so I wouldn’t have to live in such ignorance.

And the truth set me free from those fears,” she says. To share her knowledge, Santiesteban, 49, lectures on radio programs, works with community groups and has written a slim volume, “The Realities of the Scorpion,” which she printed herself.

“I have respect for them but no fear,” she says. “There’s a culture here–you learn to live with them. You shake your shoes before you put them on and shake out your sheets before getting into bed. You’re constantly looking at the walls and ceilings. It’s a survival mechanism.

” Hunting Arachnids to Make Souvenirs For the Hernandez brothers, scorpions are a means of survival. Their modest livelihood comes from the souvenirs the big family produces. They hunt scorpions from June to August, mostly in the countryside, and preserve the creatures in plastic jugs for use during the rest of the year.

“I believe we should sell the image of Durango as the capital of scorpions to bring more tourists here,” Enrique Hernandez says. “And it’s not dangerous in the good hotels in the city, only in the poor areas and wooden houses. ” He says he’s been stung 20 or so times in the 15 years he’s been catching scorpions.

He and brothers Antonio and Alejandro often use a metal rod to stir the rocks and find the scorpions. Other times they use their bare hands. In an impromptu hunt in the lot behind their house, Enrique found several scorpions hidden in the rotten stump of a maguey plant.

More scurried from trash that had been dumped on the lot. This is a perfect urban breeding ground for scorpions, the kind that state authorities are constantly advising people to clean up. Other advice: Cover doorsteps with smooth tiles, which scorpions can’t climb, and don’t use rough wood or adobe bricks, which create cozy crevices.

The Hernandez clan comes from a long tradition of scorpion hunting in the city. When Durango was still a small town, authorities tried to wipe out the critters by paying residents for each scorpion, living or dead.

Alejandro Peschard Fernandez, a local doctor, recalled in an essay that the city bought 600,000 scorpions in 1784. In 1930, another effort exterminated 50,000 more. Peschard noted that every April 23, Durango celebrates the feast day of San Jorge, patron saint protecting children against scorpions.

The feast was instituted in 1740 by Bishop Pedro Anselmo Sanchez de Tagle, who prayed that God would “placate his ire and destroy the scorpions and other insects with which this city is inundated. ” The scorpion claims an ancient place in Mexican lore.

It features in pre-Hispanic artwork of Olmec Indians signifying a midnight sacrifice. Legends dating from the 1500s tell of Spanish conquerors succumbing to stings. Over the last decade, Mexico has achieved striking results in the 16 states where scorpions are a threat.

The number of reported deaths, which once topped 1,000 a year, has fallen steadily from 285 in 1995 to 92 in 1999. Two related factors are credited with the sharp drop in fatalities: the health campaign and the serum program.

Virginia Alcantara Rodriguez, a doctor who heads the Health Ministry’s anti-scorpion program, says several thousand people have been trained since 1992 to treat scorpion stings in the tiniest villages. Because they are residents, they can treat victims in the neighborhood even at night, when most stings occur and when local clinics often are closed.

They also are trained to report all cases to a federal registry. “The number of reported cases of stings is going up, which means we are arriving closer to the reality,” Alcantara says. “More people are dealing with the problem, and we have improved the entire epidemiological system.

” An improved antivenin serum also has countered the symptoms and eased suffering for hundreds of thousands of victims. Equally important, new techniques for producing the serum appear to have nearly eliminated its once-serious side effects. Time Is of the Essence After Being Stung Sergio Gonzalez Romero, director of the Durango General Hospital, says nurses treat as many as 20 scorpion sting victims a day at the hospital’s Anti-Scorpion Center.

  1. Treatment with the costly serum is free;
  2. About 62% of the victims have only local symptoms, mainly sharp pain, and don’t need the serum;
  3. About 38% show systemic symptoms, such as rolling eyes, convulsions, sweating or a sensation of something stuck in the throat;

“With scorpion stings, time is gold,” Gonzalez says. “The great difference here is that people in Durango know now to come immediately to the hospital, and we have skilled nurses who specialize in scorpion bites. ” The head nurse at the Anti-Scorpion Center, Maria Jesus Reyes, says that “some victims arrive here nearly dead, but we haven’t lost one patient.

  • ” She says the hands are the most common target of the scorpion’s sting, as people reach out to take hold of something where a scorpion may be hiding;
  • The feet are the next most common;
  • More advice: Don’t walk barefoot;

Scorpionologists in the United States, where the arachnids tend to be less venomous except in Arizona, have long argued over the merits of using antivenin serums. Opponents contend that the possible side effects, including rashes, can be worse than riding out the sting’s effects.

Mexican doctors and researchers, however, are convinced that the improved serums are safe and reaction-free, and warranted, given the relief they offer in reducing the symptoms and pain levels almost immediately.

Alfredo Chavez Haro, head of the anti-scorpion program at the Red Cross Hospital in Leon in the central state of Guanajuato, reported recently that the hospital has treated 190,000 patients since 1970 with the serums. “The mortality rate has been zero, and the secondary effects reported so far also have been nil,” he wrote.

  • “It is important that people lose their exaggerated fear of the antidote simply because it is a product that comes from a horse;
  • ” The serum is made by extracting scorpion venom and injecting it into goats or horses, which then produce antibodies;
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The mammals’ blood is drawn and the antibodies are separated, filtered and bottled. Experts Hope FDA Will OK Serum Leslie Boyer, medical director of the Arizona Poison and Drug Information Center at the University of Arizona, wants the Mexican serum. Arizona is the only U.

state with a serious scorpion problem. The issue is urgent for Boyer because the Arizona center’s own supply of less sophisticated antivenin serum is about to run out–the woman who made it, researcher Marilyn Bloom, has retired along with her two goats.

Boyer learned that Instituto Bioclon, an arm of prominent Mexican pharmaceutical company Silanes, was producing huge volumes of a “third-generation” immunoglobulin serum from horse blood for the Mexican national program. Bioclon President Juan Lopez de Silanes says the company managed to remove from the serum the fraction of the immunoglobulin that caused adverse reactions in humans.

Lopez de Silanes says this formula has virtually eliminated the risk of two side effects: dangerous anaphylactic reactions, similar to a bad reaction to a bee sting; and delayed-reaction serum sickness, including a rash and vomiting, which can occur seven to 10 days later.

Bioclon is working with Boyer and Orphan Pharmaceuticals USA of Nashville to get U. Food and Drug Administration approval for experimental use of the drug in the United States. Boyer says she hopes that the FDA will allow Bioclon’s Alacramyn to be used in Arizona in time for the next scorpion season, which starts in the spring.

Victims willing to use the serum would be tracked for negative reactions. Conditions for scorpion victims in the two countries are vastly different. In the U. , people can get an ambulance in minutes and intensive care minutes later.

In Mexico, qualified help can be hours away. “You don’t die just from a scorpion sting in Mexico,” Boyer says. “Tiny children whose families have no car or phone to call for lifesaving care die just because it’s the straw on the camel’s back. It’s not that the scorpions are meaner but that people are more vulnerable.

” However, scorpion research here has produced surprising advances that could put the potent venom to good use for mankind. Lourival Possani, a renowned biochemist who runs a research lab in the scorpion-ridden city of Cuernavaca, is even trying to use scorpion toxins to defeat malaria.

Possani’s preliminary findings suggest that scorpion venom could prove to be an effective tool to genetically engineer mosquitoes so that they cannot carry the malaria parasite. In his crowded laboratory, research assistants milk scorpion venom from such species as the hand-sized African Pandinus imperator.

There are bins full of creeping Centruroides limpidus, the small but dangerous scorpion that infests houses in Cuernavaca and adjacent Tepoztlan in Morelos state. Possani has spent 26 years unraveling the secrets of scorpion toxins in his laboratory, which is part of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

The potential anti-malaria application will need years more detailed study, but if successful it would neatly bring full circle the centuries of efforts in Mexico to live with and even exploit the scorpion. Where better than in a country where the little beasts have been making life miserable for millions of people? (BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC) Scorpion Facts Average size: 2.

5 inches. Anatomy: Scorpions are arachnids sometimes mistaken for insects. Closely related to spiders and ticks, they have two body segments and eight legs. Number: There are hundreds of species in the world, about 40 in California, 62 in Baja California.

Habitat: In burrows under rocks and logs, and in sand. In urban areas, in lumber piles, crevices, boxes, brush and other rubble. Toxicity: Scorpion stings are painful but rarely lethal to humans. * Front claws hold prey Scorpions have 6 to 12 eyes Breathing pores are on the abdomen Stinger paralyzes prey * Sources: World Book Encyclopedia; Encyclopedia Britannica; Insects of the Los Angeles Basin.

Which tattoo is lucky for Scorpio?

09 /13 Scorpio (Oct. 23 – Nov. 21) – Scorpios, the most intense ones of the lot will probably be attracted towards tattoos which symbolize mystery and sensuality. They will get something tattooed on their body which either reminds them where they come from or what are they evolving into.

What does the scorpion symbolize in Mexican culture?

DURANGO, Mexico —  Enrique Hernandez and two of his brothers are on the hunt, armed with 8-inch tweezers and a plastic jar. They poke boldly through the rubble in an empty lot behind their house and soon snatch the day’s first trophy: a writhing, 2-inch-long scorpion.

Within half an hour, they’ve trapped 30 of the golden arachnids, whose slender pincers belie the ferocity of their sting. This species, Centruroides suffusus, can kill a child and inflict vicious pain on adults.

The eight Hernandez brothers have followed in their father’s footsteps as alacraneros, or scorpion hunters, catching thousands of the creatures each summer. Most are mounted on the key rings, ashtrays, napkin holders and wall clocks that clutter the stalls of Durango’s city market, a famed scorpion souvenir center.

Some of the catch is sold for scientific research. This flourishing industry is just one facet of Mexico’s fear of and fascination with the scorpion, which predate the Spanish conquest in 1521. No wonder: About 200,000 people get stung each year, and scores die.

Scorpions, almost unchanged in 450 million years, remain a source of widespread anxiety as well as a serious health scourge. In recent years, Mexicans have counterattacked on multiple fronts. A relentless public health campaign has dramatically reduced the death rate, and a new Mexican-made antivenin serum is so effective that U.

  • doctors want to import it;
  • Cutting-edge Mexican research could even put the scorpion’s venom to work fighting malaria in years to come;
  • Nowhere is the rich and complex scorpion culture as pervasive as in Durango, the northwestern state of which this city is the capital;

The soccer team is named the Scorpions, and a scorpion grabs your cursor when you sign on to the official state Web site. In fact, the figures don’t bear out the reputation. The city’s 550,000 people suffer about 2,000 stings a year, a fraction of the number reported in some states.

  • And nobody died of a scorpion sting last year in Durango state;
  • Fatalities are far more common in Guerrero and other Pacific Coast states such as Nayarit, Jalisco and Colima;
  • But Durango’s fame is unshakable, thanks in part to legends like that of “the death cell;

” The story has it that in 1884, a man named Juan was unfairly jailed in Durango for accidentally killing a woman. He was put in the death cell, where no one had survived a single night because of a monster scorpion. The valiant Juan caught the “killer scorpion of the death cell” and survived.

  1. He was then pardoned and set free;
  2. The tale is recounted by Betty Grace Santiesteban, a Durango city woman who went through her own ordeal thanks to scorpions;
  3. Her older brother almost died as a child from a scorpion sting;

She later moved into a house on a hill overlooking Durango where scorpions thrived. She recalls killing 100 or so in two years in her home. “One kept me awake in my bedroom until 4 a. This tiny thing was dominating my life,” she says. To overcome her fears, Santiesteban began learning about scorpions, gathering facts about the dangers, the symptoms of stings and the safeguards, “so I wouldn’t have to live in such ignorance.

  • And the truth set me free from those fears,” she says;
  • To share her knowledge, Santiesteban, 49, lectures on radio programs, works with community groups and has written a slim volume, “The Realities of the Scorpion,” which she printed herself;

“I have respect for them but no fear,” she says. “There’s a culture here–you learn to live with them. You shake your shoes before you put them on and shake out your sheets before getting into bed. You’re constantly looking at the walls and ceilings. It’s a survival mechanism.

” Hunting Arachnids to Make Souvenirs For the Hernandez brothers, scorpions are a means of survival. Their modest livelihood comes from the souvenirs the big family produces. They hunt scorpions from June to August, mostly in the countryside, and preserve the creatures in plastic jugs for use during the rest of the year.

“I believe we should sell the image of Durango as the capital of scorpions to bring more tourists here,” Enrique Hernandez says. “And it’s not dangerous in the good hotels in the city, only in the poor areas and wooden houses. ” He says he’s been stung 20 or so times in the 15 years he’s been catching scorpions.

  • He and brothers Antonio and Alejandro often use a metal rod to stir the rocks and find the scorpions;
  • Other times they use their bare hands;
  • In an impromptu hunt in the lot behind their house, Enrique found several scorpions hidden in the rotten stump of a maguey plant;
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More scurried from trash that had been dumped on the lot. This is a perfect urban breeding ground for scorpions, the kind that state authorities are constantly advising people to clean up. Other advice: Cover doorsteps with smooth tiles, which scorpions can’t climb, and don’t use rough wood or adobe bricks, which create cozy crevices.

The Hernandez clan comes from a long tradition of scorpion hunting in the city. When Durango was still a small town, authorities tried to wipe out the critters by paying residents for each scorpion, living or dead.

Alejandro Peschard Fernandez, a local doctor, recalled in an essay that the city bought 600,000 scorpions in 1784. In 1930, another effort exterminated 50,000 more. Peschard noted that every April 23, Durango celebrates the feast day of San Jorge, patron saint protecting children against scorpions.

  1. The feast was instituted in 1740 by Bishop Pedro Anselmo Sanchez de Tagle, who prayed that God would “placate his ire and destroy the scorpions and other insects with which this city is inundated;
  2. ” The scorpion claims an ancient place in Mexican lore;

It features in pre-Hispanic artwork of Olmec Indians signifying a midnight sacrifice. Legends dating from the 1500s tell of Spanish conquerors succumbing to stings. Over the last decade, Mexico has achieved striking results in the 16 states where scorpions are a threat.

  • The number of reported deaths, which once topped 1,000 a year, has fallen steadily from 285 in 1995 to 92 in 1999;
  • Two related factors are credited with the sharp drop in fatalities: the health campaign and the serum program;

Virginia Alcantara Rodriguez, a doctor who heads the Health Ministry’s anti-scorpion program, says several thousand people have been trained since 1992 to treat scorpion stings in the tiniest villages. Because they are residents, they can treat victims in the neighborhood even at night, when most stings occur and when local clinics often are closed.

They also are trained to report all cases to a federal registry. “The number of reported cases of stings is going up, which means we are arriving closer to the reality,” Alcantara says. “More people are dealing with the problem, and we have improved the entire epidemiological system.

” An improved antivenin serum also has countered the symptoms and eased suffering for hundreds of thousands of victims. Equally important, new techniques for producing the serum appear to have nearly eliminated its once-serious side effects. Time Is of the Essence After Being Stung Sergio Gonzalez Romero, director of the Durango General Hospital, says nurses treat as many as 20 scorpion sting victims a day at the hospital’s Anti-Scorpion Center.

  • Treatment with the costly serum is free;
  • About 62% of the victims have only local symptoms, mainly sharp pain, and don’t need the serum;
  • About 38% show systemic symptoms, such as rolling eyes, convulsions, sweating or a sensation of something stuck in the throat;

“With scorpion stings, time is gold,” Gonzalez says. “The great difference here is that people in Durango know now to come immediately to the hospital, and we have skilled nurses who specialize in scorpion bites. ” The head nurse at the Anti-Scorpion Center, Maria Jesus Reyes, says that “some victims arrive here nearly dead, but we haven’t lost one patient.

  1. ” She says the hands are the most common target of the scorpion’s sting, as people reach out to take hold of something where a scorpion may be hiding;
  2. The feet are the next most common;
  3. More advice: Don’t walk barefoot;

Scorpionologists in the United States, where the arachnids tend to be less venomous except in Arizona, have long argued over the merits of using antivenin serums. Opponents contend that the possible side effects, including rashes, can be worse than riding out the sting’s effects.

Mexican doctors and researchers, however, are convinced that the improved serums are safe and reaction-free, and warranted, given the relief they offer in reducing the symptoms and pain levels almost immediately.

Alfredo Chavez Haro, head of the anti-scorpion program at the Red Cross Hospital in Leon in the central state of Guanajuato, reported recently that the hospital has treated 190,000 patients since 1970 with the serums. “The mortality rate has been zero, and the secondary effects reported so far also have been nil,” he wrote.

  • “It is important that people lose their exaggerated fear of the antidote simply because it is a product that comes from a horse;
  • ” The serum is made by extracting scorpion venom and injecting it into goats or horses, which then produce antibodies;

The mammals’ blood is drawn and the antibodies are separated, filtered and bottled. Experts Hope FDA Will OK Serum Leslie Boyer, medical director of the Arizona Poison and Drug Information Center at the University of Arizona, wants the Mexican serum. Arizona is the only U.

  • state with a serious scorpion problem;
  • The issue is urgent for Boyer because the Arizona center’s own supply of less sophisticated antivenin serum is about to run out–the woman who made it, researcher Marilyn Bloom, has retired along with her two goats;

Boyer learned that Instituto Bioclon, an arm of prominent Mexican pharmaceutical company Silanes, was producing huge volumes of a “third-generation” immunoglobulin serum from horse blood for the Mexican national program. Bioclon President Juan Lopez de Silanes says the company managed to remove from the serum the fraction of the immunoglobulin that caused adverse reactions in humans.

Lopez de Silanes says this formula has virtually eliminated the risk of two side effects: dangerous anaphylactic reactions, similar to a bad reaction to a bee sting; and delayed-reaction serum sickness, including a rash and vomiting, which can occur seven to 10 days later.

Bioclon is working with Boyer and Orphan Pharmaceuticals USA of Nashville to get U. Food and Drug Administration approval for experimental use of the drug in the United States. Boyer says she hopes that the FDA will allow Bioclon’s Alacramyn to be used in Arizona in time for the next scorpion season, which starts in the spring.

Victims willing to use the serum would be tracked for negative reactions. Conditions for scorpion victims in the two countries are vastly different. In the U. , people can get an ambulance in minutes and intensive care minutes later.

In Mexico, qualified help can be hours away. “You don’t die just from a scorpion sting in Mexico,” Boyer says. “Tiny children whose families have no car or phone to call for lifesaving care die just because it’s the straw on the camel’s back. It’s not that the scorpions are meaner but that people are more vulnerable.

” However, scorpion research here has produced surprising advances that could put the potent venom to good use for mankind. Lourival Possani, a renowned biochemist who runs a research lab in the scorpion-ridden city of Cuernavaca, is even trying to use scorpion toxins to defeat malaria.

Possani’s preliminary findings suggest that scorpion venom could prove to be an effective tool to genetically engineer mosquitoes so that they cannot carry the malaria parasite. In his crowded laboratory, research assistants milk scorpion venom from such species as the hand-sized African Pandinus imperator.

There are bins full of creeping Centruroides limpidus, the small but dangerous scorpion that infests houses in Cuernavaca and adjacent Tepoztlan in Morelos state. Possani has spent 26 years unraveling the secrets of scorpion toxins in his laboratory, which is part of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

The potential anti-malaria application will need years more detailed study, but if successful it would neatly bring full circle the centuries of efforts in Mexico to live with and even exploit the scorpion. Where better than in a country where the little beasts have been making life miserable for millions of people? (BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC) Scorpion Facts Average size: 2.

  • 5 inches;
  • Anatomy: Scorpions are arachnids sometimes mistaken for insects;
  • Closely related to spiders and ticks, they have two body segments and eight legs;
  • Number: There are hundreds of species in the world, about 40 in California, 62 in Baja California;

Habitat: In burrows under rocks and logs, and in sand. In urban areas, in lumber piles, crevices, boxes, brush and other rubble. Toxicity: Scorpion stings are painful but rarely lethal to humans. * Front claws hold prey Scorpions have 6 to 12 eyes Breathing pores are on the abdomen Stinger paralyzes prey * Sources: World Book Encyclopedia; Encyclopedia Britannica; Insects of the Los Angeles Basin.

What does the scorpion mean in Egyptian?

The ancient Egyptians knew the scorpion and its toxicity, and venerated it since pre-dynastic era. They used the scorpion as a king’s name, a name of a nome (county), and a symbol to their goddess, Serqet, that protects the body and the viscera of the dead, and that accompanies them in their journey to the afterlife.