How a 19th-Century Colonial Rumour Became an Economics Lesson
An investigative report by Friends of Snakes Society, India, correcting one of the longest-running myths in economic history.
Every economics student learns about the “cobra effect,” that cautionary tale of perverse incentives gone wrong. The story goes like this: during British colonial rule in India, the government offered a bounty for dead cobras to reduce the snake population. Clever entrepreneurs allegedly began breeding cobras to collect the reward, and when the government discovered the scheme and cancelled the program, the breeders released their now-worthless snakes, making the problem worse than before.
It is a perfect parable about unintended consequences, taught in classrooms worldwide and cited in countless economics textbooks. There is just one problem: the historical evidence suggests it almost certainly never happened.
The Context: A Medical Mystery
To understand what actually occurred, we need to go back to the late 19th century, when human-snake conflict in British India was a serious concern. Sir Joseph Fayrer, then President of the Medical Board of the India Office and a leading authority on snakebite, estimated in his 1878 report Destruction of Life by Wild Animals and Venomous Snakes in India that more than 20,000 people were killed by snakes each year. Fayrer noted that the returns were “very imperfect, as up to that time no very reliable records were available.” He therefore believed the real mortality for the whole of India was “probably in excess of 20,000 annually.” Snakes were encountered everywhere. A report in the Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough in January 1894 described them as very common in fields and gardens, and noted that it was not unusual for them to enter houses and lie underneath mats and carpets, or climb into the roofs of native houses. That report identified the cobra capello, the snake now known as the Spectacled Cobra, as by far the most common of the poisonous snakes found in the country. Today we use “venomous” rather than “poisonous” to distinguish injected toxins from ingested ones. According to the Times of India of 26th November 1879, Dr. Nicholson, who was appointed in 1873 to superintend the distribution of rewards in Bangalore, estimated the cobra population in that region at around 1,000 per square mile.
Medical science was struggling to find solutions. Dr. John Shortt, M.D., a physician working in India, devoted many years of his life to finding an antidote to cobra venom. According to the Devizes and Wiltshire Advertiser of 16th January 1868, his findings were discouraging: “After much expense, and no little risk to himself, he has found that all are valueless.”
Dr. Shortt had offered 500 rupees to anyone who could produce an effective remedy, on the condition that he would supply the cobras and conduct the experiments himself. By January 1868 the prize remained unrewarded. The Maharajah of Travancore, Sir Sri Ayilyam Thirunal Rama Varma, had taken great interest in the question and increased the stakes, adding another 1,000 rupees through his Dewan T. Madhava Rao and bringing the total to £150, a substantial sum for the time.
By 1870, scientists understood why the search had failed. The Sun newspaper of London, on 3rd January 1870, published a detailed explanation from the Poonah Observer describing the cobra’s unique anatomy. Its venomous upper fangs are retractable, and if they happen to be folded back during a bite, the victim receives only harmless punctures from the lower teeth. This explained why some bite victims survived. But when the hollow upper fangs properly penetrate and inject venom, the article stated, “no known human agency can ward off fatal results.” [Note: The anatomy described here is not correct. Cobras have proteroglyphous fangs (short, fixed front fangs) and vipers have solenoglyphous fangs (front, foldable fangs).]
Writing in the Madras Weekly Mail of 2nd September 1882, Surgeon-General W. R. Cornish recalled that Shortt had concluded that solution of potash was effectual in destroying snake-venom out of the body, and that it appeared to retard the action of the poison when injected after a bite. Cornish had himself seen Shortt’s experiments in which venom mixed beforehand with liquor potassae produced no bad effect in living animals, and believed the same would hold if the remedy were injected into a fresh bite wound. The most hopeful remedy, he thought, was now the permanganate of potash, which Dr. V. Richards of Bengal had found would destroy the poison if thoroughly injected into the wound immediately after the injury. Cornish noted that Shortt “not only used every native remedy brought to his notice, but allowed the possessors of secret nostrums to try their vaunted cures in his presence.” For many years, he offered a reward to anyone who could successfully revive an animal bitten by an active cobra. Every trial failed.
The conclusion was clear: medical science had no effective treatment for cobra envenomation. This remained true for decades. Even by 1894, the Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough noted that while “the injection of ammonia has been successful in some cases, and now the injection of strychnine is giving promise of success,” the reality was stark: “the existence of a real antidote has yet to be established.”
No one ever claimed Dr. Shortt’s reward. The 1870 article ended with a recommendation that the government offer rewards for the destruction of snakes as an alternative approach to reducing human mortality.
It is worth noting that such bounties were not entirely new. Fayrer’s 1878 paper records that the Bombay Presidency had already been offering rewards for more than fifteen years before the Madras resolution of 1872.
The Bounty Program
In 1872, the Madras Presidency instituted a bounty of two annas (threepence) for every poisonous snake killed. According to the Morning Advertiser of 23rd September 1873, the program started modestly. In March 1872, just 74 snakes were killed across the entire Madras Presidency, earning rewards totalling 18 shillings and sixpence.
By March 1873, just one year later, the monthly count had reached 425,057 snakes, with rewards of £5,313. Over the full year, more than 1.25 million snakes were killed, and the government paid out £15,728 in bounties. The article noted that these numbers “would have been trebled had every part of the Presidency been equally zealous.”
Fayrer’s 1878 paper, Destruction of Life by Wild Animals and Venomous Snakes in India, shows that the bounty system extended far beyond snakes. Rewards were offered for killing a wide range of wild animals such as tigers, leopards, wolves, bears, and hyenas. In some provinces, the reward for a tiger reached as high as 500 rupees. These bounties were part of a broader colonial effort to control wildlife that was seen as a threat to people or livestock.
It is striking that no comparable allegation appears in the record for tigers or wolves. Such suspicions were reserved only for snakes, which were more numerous, less understood, and both culturally feared and revered. This suggests that the rumour reflected colonial imagination rather than observed behaviour.
Bounties for Snake Destruction
Fayrer’s paper also details the rewards paid for killing snakes across different regions. The amounts varied by location:
| Province / Region | Reward per Snake |
| Bengal | 4 annas |
| Berar | – |
| Bombay | 6 pie to 4 annas |
| Burmah | – |
| Central Provinces | 1 rupee |
| Hyderabad | 2 rupees to 8 annas |
| Madras | 1 anna |
| Mysore | 8 annas |
| North-West Provinces | 2 rupees |
| Oude | – |
| Punjab | 2 annas |
| Rajpootana | 1 to 8 annas |
Source: Fayrer, J. (1878). Destruction of Life by Wild Animals and Venomous Snakes in India, p. 9. Some regions reported variable or unrecorded rewards; the table reflects the best available data.
The Sudden Reversal
By an order dated 28th May 1873, the Madras Government abruptly scaled back the program. It restricted rewards to cobras only and cut the bounty in half, from two annas to one. Why did the government take this step? The numbers tell the real story. £15,728 had been paid out in a single year, with potential costs three times higher if all districts had participated.
The Morning Advertiser of 23rd September 1873, citing the Medical Times and Gazette, reported: “The Madras Government seems to have repented of its liberality, and to have thought that even snake-killing might be too dear; therefore, by an order dated May 28, 1873, they have restricted the reward to cobras only, and have fixed it at one anna, or three-half pence, per cobra. It was alleged that some of the natives used to breed cobras on purpose to get the rewards; but considering the immense quantity of land, which seems not to be cultivable profitably for human food, and which is covered with prickly pear and other wild plants, there really seems to be no limit to the number of snakes which might be captured.”
The concern, clearly, was financial rather than fraudulent. Note too that the correspondent discounts the allegation in the same breath as he reports it: with so much uncultivated scrub across the Presidency, there seemed no limit to the number of snakes that could simply be caught and there was no need to breed them. Yet that allegation became the seed of the story that would grow into the “Cobra Effect” and would be repeated for the next 150 years as if it were proven fact. But was any of it true?
When the Rumour Entered Official Reasoning
By 1877, the possibility of snake breeding had entered the machinery of government. A Resolution of the Government of Bombay, General Department, No. 1275, dated Bombay Castle, 23 April 1877, reviewed returns showing the results of measures taken against wild beasts and snakes across the Presidency.
The resolution reported that 140,828 snakes had been destroyed in Ratnagiri and 9,980 in Satara during 1876. It observed that in all districts the mortality from snake-bite largely exceeded that caused by other animals. The government then addressed whether increasing the rewards might provide a remedy: “It is not easy to suggest a remedy for this, as there can be little doubt that to raise the scale of rewards for the destruction of snakes would be simply to put a premium on breeding them.”
The phrasing is consequential. The resolution predicts that raising the reward would encourage breeding, and uses that anticipated consequence as an argument against raising the scale. It cites no observed breeding operation, no investigation and no naturalist opinion in support, nor does it state that breeders had been discovered.
This document records what officials believed, not what occurred. By 1877 the same reasoning that had appeared as a newspaper aside was being stated in official deliberation as a matter admitting of little doubt. The belief came first. A biological assessment followed ten years later.
The Expert Investigation
In 1887, the same government put the question to naturalists. The Bombay Natural History Society was asked whether snakes were being bred in confinement for government rewards. Its reply, written on 8th June 1887 and published in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society, Vol. 2 (1887), was unequivocal. Mr. H. M. Phipson, the Honorary Secretary, wrote: “With regard to the last paragraph in your letter concerning the possibility of snakes being bred in confinement for the sake of Government reward, I have no hesitation in saying (and in this Mr. Vidal thoroughly agrees with me) that such a thing is highly improbable.”
The naturalists examined each of the four venomous species found in the districts of Satara and Ratnagiri:
- Cobra: “Has, to the best of my knowledge, never been known to breed in confinement.”
- Russell’s Viper: Viviparous and unlikely to reproduce outside a carefully constructed serpentarium.
- Saw-scaled Viper: Subject to the same constraints as the viper.
- Krait: Not common in those districts.
These were experienced naturalists familiar with the snakes of the districts concerned. Their conclusion was clear: breeding cobras for bounties was biologically and logistically improbable given the conditions and knowledge of the time.
What Was Really Happening
Phipson also explained the likely source of the rumour: “The rumours respecting the breeding of poisonous snakes are probably founded on the fact that snakes’ eggs are frequently picked up by the junglemen, who naturally keep them until they hatch, so as to claim the Government reward in the event of the snakes being poisonous; but this practice is one that should be encouraged.”
In other words, people were simply keeping eggs until they could tell whether the hatchlings were venomous. There was nothing fraudulent about it. Phipson added that gravid females of the saw-scaled viper may occasionally have been kept for a short time so that the reward could be claimed on the young when born, and saw little or no harm in the practice.
Fayrer Rejects the Breeding Objection
In a note dated 24th November 1891, Sir Joseph Fayrer reviewed the Government of India’s report on the destruction of life by wild animals and snakes during 1890. Fayrer had been President of the Medical Board of the India Office since 1873, the position he held when he wrote both the 1878 paper cited above and this note; he retired in 1895 with the rank of surgeon-general, the title by which he is often described. The India Office transmitted his note to the Governor General in Council under Public No. 134, dated 17th December 1891. On 22nd January 1892, the Home Department in Calcutta circulated it for information to the governments of Madras, Bombay, Bengal, the N.-W. P. and Oudh, and the Punjab; the Chief Commissioners of the Central Provinces, Burma, Assam and Coorg; and the Resident at Hyderabad.
Fayrer addressed the breeding objection directly: “I would again urge the improbability that snakes would be bred as a matter of profit. This has been made an objection to the giving of rewards, but it is obviously a futile one, for it would never pay to breed poisonous snakes seeing the time they take to reach their full development, and no rewards should be given for any but poisonous snakes.”
Two conclusions can properly be drawn. First, the possibility of breeding had become a formal objection within government discussions of the reward system, consistent with the reasoning recorded by the Bombay Government in 1877. Second, a senior India Office medical authority explicitly rejected that objection as economically implausible, and the Home Department circulated that rejection to provincial governments across British India. The word “again” indicates that Fayrer had advanced this argument before, although the note does not identify the earlier occasion.
Fayrer was no conservationist. In the same note he pressed for an organised system of rewards across India and welcomed higher bounties on rogue elephants, leopards, bears and wolves. That is precisely what makes his testimony useful here. An advocate of lethal control, with every reason to defend the reward system, still considered breeding venomous snakes for profit implausible.
How the Myth Spread
The term “Cobra Effect” was not coined until 2001, by German economist Horst Siebert, who repeated the colonial anecdote without checking historical records.
The rumour began spreading soon after the bounty program. But the actual experience of these programs tells a very different story.
In Bengal, the bounty program was performing poorly. The Friend of India and Statesman reported on 3rd December 1874 that the experiment was an “almost complete failure.” The report attributed this partly to the season selected, six months from November, and partly to the inadequate remuneration offered. Most divisions reported zero cobras caught. The reasons were clear: the reward then offered, two annas, paid about what a day’s regular employment did, for work that was both dangerous and uncertain. In Howrah, the logistics were prohibitive: cobras had to be captured alive and brought to the government station, a journey of several hours.
The actual snake numbers from Bengal in 1874 were minuscule. The few districts that did participate reported only handfuls of snakes: 3 cobras here, 11 there, 21 in another district.
Yet just two years later, on 9th December 1876, the Driffield Times reported wild allegations about the same Bengal program:
“It is even insinuated that the wily Hindoo has, since the snake premium came out, ‘gone into’ snake breeding on an extensive scale, and that nine-tenths of the slain cobras were reared in his back yard!”
The racist phrasing is revealing. The author treated the claim as speculation (“it is even insinuated”), not verified fact. But notice the absurdity: the article claimed 82,391 cobras were killed in Bengal in 1875. If “nine-tenths” were bred, that would mean over 74,000 cobras were raised in people’s backyards.
How does a program that captured only dozens of snakes in 1874 suddenly produce over 82,000 in 1875 through breeding? It doesn’t. The 1874 trial had run for six months outside the snake season; a scheme run through the rains would collect vastly more. The breeding claim defies both biology and economics. Yet the breeding rumour persisted and spread, transforming from speculation into “fact” with each retelling.
It is worth noting that occasional cases of administrative corruption did occur in earlier wildlife bounty schemes as documented in Fayrer’s paper, where officials falsified records or paid out inflated claims. Such misappropriation reflected flaws in colonial supervision, not evidence of locals breeding snakes or manipulating the system. This matters enormously. Siebert did not consult the 1873 newspaper reports, the 1874 program failures, the 1876 speculation, the 1887 naturalist investigation, or the Government of India’s 1892 circulation of Fayrer’s rejection of the breeding claim. He repeated a story that had circulated unverified for over a century. After 150 years of retelling, we have found no contemporary documentation of cobra breeding operations, and no record of any prosecution.
Conclusion: Time to Retire a Harmful Myth
For generations, the Cobra Effect has been taught as a cautionary tale of perverse incentives. Policymakers cite it, professors teach it, students repeat it. The Cobra Effect was not an example of economic folly. It was colonial rumour, bureaucratic panic, and the failure to consult scientists. Its 150-year survival reveals how easily stories become “truth” when they confirm biases and simplify complexity.
Even where bounty programs appeared successful in the short term, they could create unintended ecological consequences. The Field reported on 9th October 1875, about the Sydapet farm where bounties led to the killing of snakes, squirrels, and rats etc. The result? “A great increase of birds.” While the superintendent of the farm presented this as an advantage, the dramatic surge in bird populations may signal a disrupted ecosystem. Snakes are natural predators that help regulate rodent and bird populations. Their removal, combined with the killing of squirrels and rats, eliminated multiple links in the food chain. Such disruption can create cascading effects, as an explosion in one species (birds) often leads to crop damage, competition for resources, and new pest problems. The short-term “success” of removing perceived threats merely exchanged one set of problems for another, which is why lethal control programs often fail from an ecological perspective.
From a conservation perspective, the real lessons are clear: consult experts who understand animal biology, verify claims before acting on them, and recognize that lethal control programs rarely solve wildlife conflicts. Modern approaches emphasize coexistence, education, and medical advances like antivenom, solutions that address the actual problem rather than chasing myths.
Continuing to use “Cobra Effect” today is not innocent shorthand. It perpetuates colonial misinformation that caricatured Indians as cunning opportunists. Every uncritical repetition keeps alive a debunked story, wrapped in academic respectability by an economist who never checked the sources.
We have better language: perverse incentive, incentive trap, policy backfire, unintended consequence. These terms describe the same principle without recycling a racist colonial fable.
The irony is that the real “cobra effect” is about breeding myths, not snakes. A rumour born of nineteenth-century bureaucracy slithered through newspapers, crossed centuries, and coiled itself around modern economics until fiction became “fact.”
If accuracy matters, and if respect matters, we should retire the term, or redefine it honestly as a textbook case of how misinformation spreads when no one checks the source.
Note: This investigative report is based on historical newspaper archives from 1868 to 1894, the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society, J. Fayrer’s 1878 paper Destruction of Life by Wild Animals and Venomous Snakes in India, and official proceedings of the Governments of Bombay and India held by the National Archives of India. All quotations are taken directly from contemporary publications and archival records. The discussion of the modern term “Cobra Effect” draws on Horst Siebert’s Der Kobra-Effekt (2001).
Modern snake conservation emphasizes coexistence, education, medical preparedness, and habitat management. Friends of Snakes Society is also exploring AI solutions to prevent snakebite incidents. If you encounter a snake, contact an authorized wildlife rescue organization or your local Forest Department rather than attempting to handle or kill it.
References
- Devizes and Wiltshire Advertiser, January 16, 1868. “The Poison of the Cobra.”
- The Sun (London), January 3, 1870. “Remedy for Cobra Bite.” (from the Poonah Observer).
- Morning Advertiser, September 23, 1873. “Snakes” (citing Medical Times and Gazette).
- Friend of India and Statesman, December 3, 1874. “Snake Hunting.”
- The Field, The Country Gentleman’s Newspaper, October 9, 1875. “THE FARM – Agriculture in Madras.”
- Driffield Times, December 9, 1876. “Slaying the Cobras in India.”
- Government of Bombay, General Department. Resolution No. 1275, dated Bombay Castle, 23 April 1877. National Archives of India, file identifier NAIDLF02498258.
- Fayrer, J. (1878). Destruction of Life by Wild Animals and Venomous Snakes in India: A Paper Read Before the Indian Section of the Society of Arts, Friday, February 1, 1878. London: J. & A. Churchill.
- Times of India, November 26, 1879.
- Madras Weekly Mail, September 2, 1882. “Cure for Cobra Bite” (Surgeon-General W. R. Cornish on Dr. Shortt’s experiments).
- Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society, Vol. 2 (1887), pp. 205-206. “Snake-Breeding for the Government Reward.”
- National Archives of India. Foreign Department, Internal-B, Proceedings, February 1892, Nos. 96–97, file identifier NAIDLF00166054. Includes the note by Sir Joseph Fayrer dated 24 November 1891, transmitted with India Office, Public No. 134, dated 17 December 1891, and circulated by the Home Department, Public, Calcutta, on 22 January 1892.
- Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough, January 10, 1894. “An Indian Cobra Catcher.”
- Siebert, H. (2001). Der Kobra-Effekt: Wie man Irrwege der Wirtschaftspolitik vermeidet. Munich: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt.
By Friends of Snakes Society, India – the world’s largest community-based snake rescue and conservation organization, dedicated to promoting coexistence between people and reptiles.
You are free to reproduce or share this report in whole or in part, provided you cite Friends of Snakes Society as the source.
Updated 16 September 2026. Expanded with two National Archives of India documents (a Bombay resolution of 23 April 1877 and a note of 24 November 1891 by Sir Joseph Fayrer). In preparing the revision every source cited in the original report was re-checked against the source documents, and quotations and attributions were brought into closer agreement with them. The central conclusion is unchanged.
