Steven Ludwin is a man you would be interested to meet. He is a man with a strange habit of injecting himself with snake venom out of curiosity despite warnings that it could endanger his life.
His reckless curiosity for 30 years has caused him some severe snake bites- including two in the past year. As he approaches his 50th birthday, Ludwin looks back and realized how extreme his long-term habit has been.
"The pain is like someone has taken a sledgehammer, smashed it on your hand and then holds a flame underneath," explained Ludwin "It's evolution telling you to stay away from these things."
Ludwin is a musician based in London. He owns 17 snakes- 15 poisonous ones from all over the world ( some of which include a Costa Rican palm viper, green tree python, a Mexican west coast rattlesnake). His strange wildlife collection can be found between his apartment and a storage closet down the hall. "I just thought that was incredible," he said.
Aside from collecting snakes, he also infuses himself with their venoms regularly- as a hobby out of curiosity.The snake enthusiast explains that snakes fascinate him. He started drawing pictures of them as a young boy. Soon enough, he started taking care of a boa constrictor as a pet. Injecting snake venom suddenly came up as an idea as he gained further interest in snakes.
For Ludwin, injecting snake venom is like self-immunization. The realization came unto him following a meeting with Bill Haast when he was 10 years old. Haast is a snake venom researcher. He is also a tourist attraction owner at Miami Serpentarium Laboratories in the US. Haast run a program that explored the possibilities of building immunity to snake venom. This immunization program interested Ludwin to further expose himself to minute amounts of the venom and find out if it can lead to protection against their poison.
"At a very early age, I just thought that was incredible. I'd never heard of such a thing ... and it always stuck in my mind," Ludwin shares.
