384 BuLivSTiN 83 



sponsible, and as to the severity of the results. The details con- 

 cerning the effects, while not identical, are sufficiently similar to 

 show the possible seriousness of a tarantula bite. On the basis of 

 the facts learned, I should say that tarantulas are not nearly so 

 prone to bite human individuals as is generally supposed, since but 

 seven cases have been seen by five reputable physicians with an 

 aggregate of more than a hundred years of practice in Tucson. I 

 believe, also, that while the injury produced is quite severe, and 

 somewhat serious, yet it is hardly to be considered actually danger- 

 ous to life for the average healthy, full-grown individual. One 

 physician consulted suggested the possible danger in case the poi- 

 son should be injected by the jaws into a good-sized blood vessel, 

 and we can agree with that, yet recognizing that the likelihood of 

 the animal so injecting the poison is not very great, on account of 

 the size of the jaws. These are large for a spider, but not to be 

 compared in length with the fangs of a rattlesnake. For a child 

 the bite would likely be very serious and quite possibly fatal. In- 

 deed, one unauthenticated case of death of a child in Tucson has 

 been reported to me. 



Some of the reported cases of spider injury state that the injury 

 was inflicted by a "small black spider," and these reports are more 

 likely to have a basis in fact as to ill effects than other stories of 

 spider injury. There is a certain species of small black spider, 

 about one-half inch long, — the "black widow," or "shoe-button 

 spider," Latrodcctiis mactans, which is seemingly a somewhat for- 

 midable exception to the general rule concerning small spiders. 

 This kind is reported from "the South," not specifically from Ari- 

 zona, but doubtless exists here. Experimental evidence shows that 

 this and other species of Latrodectus from various parts of the world 

 have a much more virulent poison that ordinary spiders. This is 

 borne out by reported cases, while in the various countries where 

 they are native these spiders are almost universally held to be dan- 

 gerously poisonous. Among them are the dreaded "Malmignatte" 

 of southern Europe, the "Katipo" of New Zealand, the "Vancoho" 

 of Madagascar, the "Karakurte" of southeastern Russia, and our 

 own kind, called "Po-ko-moo" by certain California Indians. The 

 latter, according to Merriam, as quoted by Comstock "rank it with 

 the rattlesnake as poison. To poison their arrows they mash the 

 spider and rub the points of the arrows in it." The symptoms pro- 

 duced experimentally agree with the symptoms of persons who 

 have been snake bitten. There are several cases on record of severe 



