Bill is happy that he hasn’t had to live up to the legless creature removal clause so far, though the souvenir snake skin in our house gave us a fright when it was blown onto the floor of the bathroom while we were away.  Sadly, the local villagers have not been so lucky lately.  Yesterday, a young man hobbled into the clinic after being bitten on the foot by a puff adder the night before.  He had trouble finding transportation from his village 40 miles away, and by the time he arrived, his foot and leg were dramatically swollen and numb.  We did everything we could for him which meant giving a tetanus shot and injections of two different antibiotics before sending him off to find transport to Kamoto Hospital.  Last night with only the night nurse at the clinic, another man was brought in after a black mamba bit him on the leg.   Black mambas are the most feared snakes in Africa. Aggressive and able to “stand up” two thirds of its nine to twelve foot body length the mamba with its appropriately “coffin-shaped” head has a bite that is 100 percent fatal, within as quickly as an hour of the bite,  without antivenom treatment.  The closest available antivenom to reverse the neurotoxic effects of the venom is at Chipata General Hospital, a hopeless three hour drive away.  The nurse said this father of five cried to see his children before he died, but his family lived too far away.  He was only 33 years old.