text: Venom in medicine is the medicinal use of venoms for therapeutic benefit in treating diseases.
  Venom is any poisonous compound secreted by an animal intended to harm or disable another. When an organism produces a venom, its final form may contain hundreds of different bioactive elements that interact with each other inevitably producing its toxic effects. This mixture of ingredients includes various proteins, peptides, and non-peptidic small molecules. The active components of these venoms are isolated, purified, and screened in assays.  These may be either phenotypic assays to identify component that may have desirable therapeutic properties (forward pharmacology) or target directed assays to identify their biological target and mechanism of action (reverse pharmacology).