Fyffe. — On the Bite of the Katipo. 437 



the back of his left hand. On looking at his hand he found a 

 red spider making its escape across the skin. He immediately 

 killed the spider, bringing me the remains. There was no 

 doubt the animal was a katipo. I saw the patient, who was 

 aged eighteen, about three hours after the bite. He staggered 

 into my consulting-room, and whilst showing me his hand, 

 and explaining how its present condition came about, fainted. 

 He recovered after applying restoratives. I then examined 

 his hand. Though the bite had occurred only three hours 

 before there was acute cellulitis (inflammation of the soft 

 tissues) all over the back of the hand, spreading up into the 

 forearm. The point where the bite had been made was the 

 seat of most acute inflammation. The lymphatics up the 

 arm on its extensor surface were red, and standing out like 

 cords as far as the elbow. The glands at the bend of the 

 elbow were enlarged and very painful. The axillary glands 

 were painful, but not enlarged. The interesting part of the 

 case, however, was the general condition of the patient ; as I 

 stated, the man fainted when he came to see me. I may say 

 that he had come in by train and driven to my house, so that 

 no undue exertion had been used. The heart's action was 

 irregular and feeble in the extreme. The pupils of the eye 

 were dilated, and acted badly to light and accommodation. 

 There was some involuntary muscular twitcbing, chiefly of 

 the face and of the left-arm muscles. The knee-jerks were 

 almost absent. The arm-reflexes had entirely gone, both 

 superficial and deep. The man felt sick, and his tongue was 

 dirty. His temperature was 101° Fahr. He had relatives in 

 Wellington, and I sent him straight home to bed, visiting him 

 an hour later. I then found the inflammation in the left 

 hand had greatly increased, and he was delirious, with a 

 temperature of 103° Fahr. I at once administered ether, and 

 made several deep incisions on the dorsum of the left hand 

 down to the bone, and, as the back of the forearm was 

 oedematous, I made two further incisions there. They all 

 bled freely, which bleeding I did not stop. All the incisions 

 were dressed with antiseptic double cyanide gauze soaked in 

 l-in-40 carbolic. The next morning the patient was quite 

 rational, the heart's action was much stronger, and the local 

 inflammation had greatly subsided. From this time onwards 

 he made an uninterrupted recovery. 



The points of interest are, first, the intensity of the local 

 inflammation. In this case had the man used a knife freely 

 when bitten, caused copious bleeding, and then sucked the 

 wound he probably would have escaped with very little 

 further trouble ; but, instead, he left the bite alone. The local 

 effect of the bite was not unlike that of a scorpion, though not 

 by any means so severe. The acute nature of the cellulitis 



