68 



ARACHNOIDEA, 



Lycosa tarantula (slightly magnified). 



CASE fellow's sole remedy was a bottle of wine, which charmed away his 



pain without the aid of 

 pipe or tabor. . That it 

 does this extent of injury 

 is probably the true ver- 

 sion of the tale, because 

 Count Motschulsky de- 

 scribes another species, 

 from the south of Russia, 

 to which similar offensive 

 properties are ascribed. 

 But such moderate an- 

 noyance is by no means 

 the effect which in the 

 last century was popularly supposed to be produced by the bite 

 of this spider. The Tarantismus either affected anyone bitten by 

 throwing him into a profound and moody melancholy similar to 

 what is often to be seen in our lunatic asylums under the name 

 religious depression, or in frantic dancing and gesticulation, which 

 often terminated in convulsions. The remedy was music, which 

 timed the dancing, and the curious thing was that it did not 

 seem necessary that each patient should be bitten by the 

 Tarantula — a Tarantula patient infected all that came near 

 him. The consequence was that the disease ran through whole 

 districts and villages like an epidemic. There is no reason to 

 dispute that it did so, and that hundreds were affected at the same 

 time by this dancing disease, but the Tarantula had nothing to do 

 with it. It was one of those examples of the results of unnatural ex- 

 citement which in all countries, and especially under the influence 

 of religious impressions, has produced similar consequences. The 

 dancing dervishes of India, the shakers of America, and individual 

 examples at religious revivals in our own country, probably all 

 suffer more or less from something allied to the Tarantula of Italy. 

 No. 4- Lycosa tarantula {Linn.)—^. Sketch of ditto, slightly magnified. 



