To find a way to benefit from the effect of snake poison has been attempted for a long time. Either by "pickling" the whole or cut up animal the poisons and their properties were supposed to be transferred into the surrounding liquid and thus available for use. Even today there is still the "Viper Alcohol" which remained as a relic from ancient times in some rural areas.
 

Only in the last decades it has become possible to make exact biochemical and pharmacological analyses which give information on which components of the snake poison can also be applied medically. The knowledge which was gained this way was for instance used to realize that components of snake poison can be used to treat blood clots. Snake poison components are also used in the medical treatment of blood pressure illnesses. Also various diagnoses are being made with the help of snake poison, some actually are exclusively based on the knowledge of its effect. For some time now it is known as well that some snake poisons can be used successfully for the treatment of virus infections and neurological disorders. Recently attempts are made to utilize the tissue destroying effect of viper poisons for the fight agains cancer. However research on this field is still in its initial stages.

But just because to a great extent this field is still unexplored it is very likely that in future there will be more discoveries about further unknown and medically useful substances in the various snake poisons. The poison of vipers will probably get a much greater importance than ever as a biological and therefore natural weapon against human diseases.