EFFECTS AND USES OF SPIDER POISON. 283 



not hesitate to declare that the whole matter of the tarantula poison is 

 an imposition of the peasants upon travelers who happen to pass through 

 tliat part of the country, and who proffer then a trifle for suf- 

 An Im- fg,j.jng themselves to be "bitten by the tarantula." Whenever 

 posi ion. ^^^ peasants find a tourist willing to try the experiment they 

 readily offer themselves. They are sure to counterfeit the whole train of 

 symptoms which music is supposed to move.^ 



It is not to be wondered at that notions such as these were formerly 

 fixed in the minds of common people, when we remember that it is but 

 a comparatively short period since learned men and physicians 

 Credulous ^,g^g under the dominion of kindred errors as to the deadly 

 °^ °^^' effects of spiders. Dr. James, in his Medical Dictionary, thinks 

 it worth while to give a number of examples of this sort. He tells seri- 

 ously of a woman who was possessed with a cruel passion for destroying 

 spiders by burning them in the flame of a candle, but who was cured by 

 a remedy quite as remarkable as the disease. One night while the perse- 

 cutor was destroying a large black spider it burst with a great crack, and 

 the animal fluids were thrown into her eyes and upon her lips. There- 

 upon she flung away her candle and cried for help, fancying herself killed 

 with the poison. 



In the night the woman's lips swelled excessively, and one of her eyes 

 was much inflamed. Her gums and tongue were affected, and a continual 

 vomiting attended. For several days she suffered the greatest pain, but 

 a cure was eventually effected with a preparation of plantain leaves and 

 cobwebs applied to the eyes, and taken inwardly two or three times a 

 day.^ It is a pity that people in this age of vaunted science and intelli- 

 gence, and who are not far removed from the folly and cruelty of this 

 woman, could not like her at least fall under the sway of a kindred fear, 

 and thus be moved to spare the unfortunate creatures whom they slay. 



The same medical authority records that several monks in a monastery 

 in Florence are said to have died from the effects of drinking wine out of 

 a vessel in which there was afterwards found a drowned spider. One per- 

 haps might be persuaded that in those "good old days" even monks may 

 have been found who " died from the eifects of drinking wine." But modern 

 judgment would probably decide the aforesaid story of the spider's fatal 

 offices a case of " post quod " rather than " propter quod." 



These curious examples of intellectual bondage and credulity among 

 learned and unlearned alike might be greatly multiplied, and no doubt 

 would be interesting. But they belong to the natural history of man rather 

 than of the spider. Let us hope that the emancipation of our race from 

 all errors concerning spiders may soon be complete. 



"'Goldsmith's Animated Xaturo," Pliiladelphia edition, 1795, Vol. IV., page 153. 

 2 A Medical Dictionary, by R. James, M. D., Lond., 1743, Vol. I., "Araneus." 



