TELA ARANE^. 



has resorted to tilmost every empirical composition from which he could 

 expect advantage; but in vain. 



"For a considerable time back he has never been able to lie down in his 

 bed, on account of a sense of suffocation, which he always experiences in 

 a horizontal posture, but is obliged to be supported half-sitting by pillows, 

 and even then is tormented to such a degree by incessant cough, so violent 

 as often to induce vomiting, that he can seldom sleep before two or three 

 o'clock in the morning, and his slumbers are often interrupted. About three 

 weeks ago I was witness to his sufferings, which came on, on board the 

 ship, after he had been dining with me, and I much regretted that I had no 

 cobweb to administer, as I was well aware of the inefficacy of all other 

 medicines in his case. I however mentioned the subject to him, and the 

 following day he collected nearly a scruple of the spider's web, which he 

 swallowed at bedtime, and to his utter astonishment, enjoyed sound and 

 uninterrupted sleep all night; a bliessing to which he had been an entire 

 stranger above six years. Since he began the cobweb, he thinks his health 

 is improved; the cough has certainly abated; but he finds much difficulty 

 in procuring a sufficient quantity of the web, and whenever it is omitted 

 the complaint returns." — James Scott, Surgeon, H. M. S. Euryalus, off Dungeness, 

 Sept. i8, i8og. 



To the discussion Dr. Jackson contributes again as follows : 

 "That cobweb is capable of stopping the course of intermittents is as 

 well proved as any fact in physic; but it is also true that it acts power- 

 fully in all the other conditions noticed in my paper of May; and I may add, 

 in many others that I omitted to mention. I shall trouble you with only 

 one testimony. In the month of last June, an army physician, who exer- 

 cises his profession in civil life, and to whom I was little known, accosted 

 rtie, and took the opportunity of mentioning that he had employed cobweb 

 in a troublesome case, in consequence of what I had said of it in the Medi- 

 cal Journal. The case, he observed, was one of pain, distress, .and watch- 

 fulness, of unusual obstinacy. The cobweb was ordered faithfully prepared 

 and administered. The effect appeared to have surprised the patient; fo'- 

 he called upon his physician nej^t morning to say that he had not passed 

 a night with so much comfort in six years. The remedy was repeated, and 

 it always gave ease and tranquility, though the patient did not always sleep." 

 -^Robert Jackson, M. D., Castle Bdeh, Durham, Sept. ig, i8oq. From the Medical 

 and Physical Journal, Vol. XXII, pp. 369-370. 



Then came an interval of several decades, in which Tela Araneje 

 was largely neglected, this period of rest being broken, 1865, by the 

 following article in Jones and Scudder's Materia Medico, soon fol- 

 lowed by another important contribution to the therapeutics of Tela 

 Aranese, by Dr. L,. M. Jones, in the Lancet and Observer, Cincinnati. 



In asthma it is said to allay irritation, tranquilize the system, and act 

 like a charm. In spasmodic complaints of females; in chronic hysteria, and 

 other diseases attended with morbid irritability of the nervous system, it 

 has been advantageously employed. Dr. Webster, of Boston, has found it 

 beneficial in rheumatic affections of the head, asthma, and chronic coiighs. 

 He says it produces a pleasant delirium and exhilarating effects resembling 

 the nitrous oxide gas. Dr. Gillespie used it in obstinate intermittents suc- 

 cessfully, after other remedies had proved ineffectual. He thinks it more 

 effectual than bark, arsenic, or any other remedy he has employed. 



Dose. — Gr. v to vj, in pill; repeat every three or four hours. Dr. Jack- 

 son thinks a dose of gr. v produces nearly the same effects as one of gr. xx. 

 — Jones and Scudder's Materia Medica. 



By L. M. Jones, M. D.: 



"Having had some experience with this remfedy lately in these trouble- 

 some affections, I give it for the consideration of the readers of the Lancet 

 and Observer. 



30 



