The handbook provides a registry of all known venomous peptides and proteins, grouping the toxins according to animal species, and according to their chemical structure. Each subchapter features an introduction to the chemistry of this class of toxin giving a general context, function mode of action, general chemical structure, and comments. This introduction is followed by entries for each of the toxins. For each of the toxins there is also the SWISSPROT code given, so that direct links to the database are possible.