Venom v Poison

I know the conflation of English words and the contraction of our vocabulary is inevitable, for instance "borrow" coming to mean "lend", and this has gone in waves throughout the development of the language:  in medieval English "ring" could refer to a ring and what when through it.  Nevertheless I'm going to keep trying to make one useful distinction about two conflated words that refer to different things.  Animal Planet is whoring themselves out to promote a new DVD release of "The Jungle Book", showing features on all of the animals in that book framed as "Baloo's Birthday Bash", but while normally this would be some what nauseating in its commercialism, I actually don't mind since I love this channel and I don't begrudge them trying to make a buck if they stay on the air.

As an aside, I also appreciate them for defying a troubling observation made by Lord Robert May in a speech called "The Taxonomy of Taxonomists" I heard back at the '93 Nobel Conference at Gustavus, in which he lamented the focus of biology on "our furred and feathered friends" while explaining to all of us wide-eyed students the incredible and unexplored diversity of the biosphere.  He was also the funniest, most engaging scientist I have ever heard speak on any topic, particularly in his comments on the lurking fungus population of the British Isles.  So I was pleased to see Animal Planet as part of their homage to Kipling and Baloo was showing a Wild Kingdom documentary on Romulus Whitaker's work with king cobras set to Elvis music in tribute to his breeding pair Elvis and Priscilla.  These cobras are fascinating and terrifying animals, and a significant part of India's wildlife, just as Kaa the rock python was a critical part of the Jungle Book.  The best appearance of the rock python is that episode of Wildboyz where they dressed up in 80's metal band shirts and mullet wigs (for the python that rocks) while Chris Pontius tried to get the snake to bite him so he could rub ink into the wound and get a rock python tattoo.  That was truly stupid, as arguably is Whitaker's work with cobras when he's been bitten so much he's developed an allergy to the antivenin.

But the point is, a scientific documentary should get this one little detail right:  king cobras are not poisonous!  Footage exists to easily prove this and appears in other shows Animal Planet has shown on cobras, specifically a sad little tale of a newly emerged baby cobra going for a drink of water and getting eaten by a lurking mammalian predator.  They also eat each other, which is why they're part of the genus ophiophagus:  snake-eaters.  The entire point of those big fangs is to inject venom, which is not the same thing as poison:  one works in the bloodstream, one works in the digestive system.  You notice how you don't have to wait an hour to go swimming after being bitten by a cobra, and you don't have to wait for your dinner to settle for the respiratory failure to set in?  Helpful tip:  if air is forced into your lungs by helpful friends on your way to the hospital, you can keep enough oxygen in your system to get some antivenin (again... injected) and that pesky pulmonary paralysis will clear right up.  I know it's more or less synecdoche at this point, but seriously people, venomous snakes are different from poisonous snakes, that's why you can serve rattlesnake chili and your guests don't all end up gasping on the floor staring at the ceiling.

In short, the Packers coming to town is poison, venom is what I'll be spewing all afternoon (I am completely dreading this game).