THE TARANTULA. 139 



Advocates for music as an antidote. 



where the tarantula is produced, hasVritten a 

 dissertation, in which he describes the region of 

 Apulia, where the tarantula is produced, with the 

 anatomy and figure of the insect and its eggs ; 

 he mentions particularly the symptoms that fol- 

 low from the bite, and the cure of the disease by 

 music, with a variety of histories of cures thus 

 wrought, many of them communicated by per- 

 sons who were eye witnesses of the process. 



Ludovicus Valetta, a celestine monk of Apu- 

 lia, published at Naples in the year 1709, a 

 treatise upon this spider, in which he not only 

 answers the objections of those who deny the 

 whole circumstances, but gives, from his own 

 knowledge, several instances of persons who had 

 suffered this way, some of whom were of great 

 families, and so far from being dissemblers, that 

 they would at any rate, to avoid shame, have 

 concealed the misfortune which had befallen, 

 them. The Hon. Mr. Robert Boyle, in his trea- 

 tise of " Languid and Unheeded Motions," 

 speaking of the bite of the tarantula, and the 

 cure of the disease which follows it, by means of 

 music, says, " that having himself had some 

 doubts about the matter, he was, after strict en-? 

 quiry, convinced that the relations in the main 

 were true." Lastly, Dr. Mead, in his " Mecha- 

 nical account of Poisons," has given an essay on 

 the tarantula, containing the substance of the 

 above relations, which he endeavors to confirm 

 by his own reasoning thereon. 



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