THE TARANTULA. ^ 187 



Effects of, and supposed cure for its bite. 



hours brings on sickness, difficulty of breathing, 

 and universal faintness. The person is afterwards 

 afflicted with a delirium, and sometimes is seized 

 with a deep melancholy. The same symptoms 

 return annually, in some cases, for several years, 

 and at last terminate in death. Music, it has 

 been pretended, is the only cure. A musician 

 is brought, who tries a variety of airs, till at last 

 he hits upon one that urges the pattent to dance; 

 the violence of which exercise produces a pro- 

 portionable agitation of the vital principles, at- 

 tended with a consequent degree of perspiration, 

 the certain consequence of which is a cure. Such 

 are the circumstances which have been generally 

 related, and long credited, concerning the bite 

 of this animal. Kircherus, in his " Musurgia," 

 gives a very particular account of the symp- 

 toms and cures, illustrated by histories of cases. 

 Among these he mentions a girl who, being 

 bitten by this insect, could be cured only by the 

 music of a drum. He then proceeds to relate, 

 that a certain Spaniard, trusting to the efficacy 

 of music in the cure of the frenzy occasioned by 

 the bite of the tarantula, submitted to be bitten 

 on the hand by two of these creatures, of differ- 

 ent colors, and possessed of different qualities; 

 the venom was no sooner diffused about his body 

 than the symptoms of the disorder began to 

 appear ; upon which harpers, pipers, and other 

 musicians were sent for, who, by various kinds 

 of music, endeavored to rouze him from that 

 VOL. vi. NO. 41. s 



