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submitted by George Poulos on 07.04.2004

Scorpion Oral Vaccine

Scorpions are one of the few venemous creatures on the island of Kythera.

My mother Evangalia, (Angie) Poulos (nee Coroneos) told me that her mother Georgia (nee Mentes) used to ask her children to bring any scorpions that they found to her.

She would crush the scorpions up with a mortar and pestel - mix the "scorpion goo" with milk - and ask her children to drink the mixture.

She claimed that this would afford her children a great deal of protection - in the event that they were bitten by a scorpion. The impact of the symptoms of the bite would be greatly reduced if they had taken their scorpion and milk mixture.

My grandmother had learnt this "vaccination" technique from her mother - and it seemed as if the practice my have been passed down for generations, if not centuries, and millenia.

Did the Kytherians invent the technique of vaccination centuries before Lister?

The technique of oral vaccination centuries before Western medical science?

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