﻿ANOTHER DANGEROUS JELLYFISH IN PHILIPPINE WATERS 



By S. F. Light 



(From the Zoological Laboratory, College of Liberal Arts, 



University of the Philippines) 



During the stay of the biological survey party of the Univer- 

 sity of the Philippines and the Bureau of Science in Taytay, 

 Palawan, in 1913, one of the women of the party was severely 

 poisoned by the sting of a jellyfish hitherto not specifically re- 

 ported as dangerous. A number of specimens of this medusa 

 were procured, and since returning to Manila I have been able 

 to indentify it as Chiropsalmvs quadrigatus Haeckel, a species 

 named by Haeckel from a specimen collected at Rangoon. 

 Mayer ^ has recently redescribed it from specimens collected by 

 the United States Bureau of Fisheries ship Albatross in various 

 parts of the Philippines. 



It was unfortunate that there was no doctor in the party to 

 preserve an accurate and technical account of the symptoms, but 

 I give the following untechnical description in the hope that it 

 may be at least of general interest to medical men in the Islands. 



The stings were inflicted on the feet and legs, the long and 

 delicate tentacles wrapping several times around the legs and 

 breaking from the body of the medusa. These tentacles, bearing 

 tens of thousands of minute nettling cells, clung to the skin, and 

 wherever they touched a purplish swollen ridge appeared with- 

 in a few seconds. Within a few hours, each of these ridges was 

 marked by a continuous blister, and although these were opened 

 several times they persisted for about a week. The red marks 

 which were left wherever the tentacles had touched the skin were 

 still very distinct, some four months after the sting was in- 

 flicted. This bears out the statements of the people of Palawan, 

 who say that these marks always persist for six months or even 

 more. Swelling of the legs and feet began almost immediately, 

 and persisted for from seven to eight weeks, the person stung 

 not being able to walk because of this swelling. About ten 

 minutes after the sting was inflicted, general muscular spasms 

 ensued. Those of the respiratory muscles began after about 



* Medusae of the World (1910), 3, 516. 



291 



