Snakephobia

His mother “never could abide” the serpent; its Freischutzian tones were unearthly in the old lady’s ears, and seemed to fret her bowels into fiddle strings, and positively turn her inside out, as the old lady declared just before her death, which occurrence was doubtless hastened by the violence of her snakephobia.

Source: wiktionary

Death from Snakephobia.—The Tampa Peninsular (Fla.) of the 19th ult. says that Mrs. Sealy, of that vicinity, died under the following extraordinary circumstances:—About two weeks previous to her death, a small garter snake made its way through the floor of the residence and wrapped itself around the ankle of the unfortune woman, who was frightened into spasms.

Source: wiktionary

One may say that snakephobia is common to all human beings, and Charles Darwin has described most impressively how he was unable to control his fear of a snake pointing for him, though he knew he was separated from it by a thick pane of glass.

Source: wiktionary

Women are traditionally hysterical in the presence of members of the reptile kingdom. To reconcile Eve to the snake—that was the problem. In vain did the promoters of the new fad invoke plausible arguments. From one stage door to another went the emissaries of the reptile hide plungers, imploring the help of one after the other of the Paris footlight beauties. Everywhere they met with the same unreasonable snakephobia, distinguishing characteristic of femininity.

Source: wiktionary