Certainly you might think that.

More probable is that a world leader in herpetology (study of reptiles and amphibians) was acutely aware of the state of antivenom production in 1957, spotty for common snakes and near non existent for rare and as yet unidentified African snakes.

Production is slow and low volume, shelf life is limited, the number of variations required for different snakes is large.

Of possible interest, to just scratch the surface:

* https://biomedicalsciences.unimelb.edu.au/departments/depart...

* https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2025-05-03/universal-ant...

It might counter your apparent notion that the man here could just pop into a hospital and be magically cured.