São Paulo - Butantã Institute

Butantã Institute

Also within the University City (Avenida Vital Brasil 1500) is the Butantã Institute, world-famed for its studies of poisonous snakes. It stands in a large park, with leisure and recreation facilities and vivaria for cobras, lizards, scorpions and spiders. The scientists and technicians of the Institute are specialists in vaccines and sera. Altogether 24 kinds of medicaments are made here, with the main emphasis on sera against snake-bites.

The public are admitted to the Institute's Historical Museum, with material on the founder of the Institute, Dr Vital Brasil, and the Museum on Poisonous Animals and Public Health, with specimens of many poisonous animals, including 407 species of cobra. The Institute also runs courses on keeping such animals and on first aid for cobra or scorpion bites. There is a library of over 70,000 volumes available for consultation by students, professors and scientists.