CONCLUSION. 83 



the mandibles having been inserted into the cut, and 

 the insect, being squeezed by ' the child, having 

 emptied the whole available contents of its poison 

 gland into the cellular tissue exposed in the cut, 

 whence it was quickly absorbed. This also accounted 

 for the absence of all irritation and of the neuralgic 

 pains usually accompanying spiderbite, when the 

 mandibles merely perforate the epidermis and the 

 poison is deposited in the upper cutis, where absorp- 

 tion is slow and local irritation consequently greater. 



Minuteness of detail in relating this case must be 

 excused on account of the extreme interest and import- 

 ance attached to it. Being brought about under such 

 peculiar and almost unique circumstances it presented 

 the effects of spider-poison in a superlative degree and 

 showed them to be identical with those of snake- 

 poison. But whilst the latter ushers in the symptoms 

 with such rapidity that they cover each other and are 

 difficult of separate analysis, in this case the highly 

 significant paresis of the lower extremities, evidently 

 of central origin, remained separate for some time. 

 Taking this symptom for his guide and interpreting 

 the formidable array of the others, developed during 

 the night, on the same principle, the writer's diagnosis 

 of the case, as it presented itself to him, was paralysis 

 of the motor and vaso-motor nerve-centres. This, he 

 found, and this alone could explain all the symptoms, 

 and he therefore determined to put its correctness to a 

 practical test. There was but one remedy to make 

 this test with and this had to be applied without delay, 



