By Oren Dorell, USA TODAY
Bitten by an African green mamba, a 47-year-old man at Indianapolis' Methodist Hospital was having difficulty speaking and problems moving his eyes and legs.
Emergency room physician Mary Wermuth had no anti-venin to help the man, whose rare pet snake was among the world's deadliest. Wermuth immediately went to her computer and consulted the online Anti-venom Index to find the nearest source of an antidote.

"It was a couple of taps at the keyboard and we found it was at the local zoo," she said.

The member-controlled index went online in 2006, connecting hospitals with rare anti-venins. But now the program faces new challenges.

An influx of exotic snakes into the United States, coupled with a drugmaker's decision to stop making anti-venin for a snake found throughout the South, is putting pressure on toxicologists who try to prevent painful deaths by snake bite.