TELA ARANE^. 



Aetius (about 500 A. D.) for suffocation of the mothers, applied 

 rate of spiders to the navel, and said it did great good. 



Also that knotty whip of God, and mock of all physicians, the Goul 

 lich learned men say can be cured by no remedy, finds help and cur 

 ■ a spider laid on. 



Antoninus Pius (86-161 A. D.) was wont to say, that the quirks o 

 phistry were like to Spiders' Webs, that had a great deal of art an^ 

 jenuity in them, but very little profit. But how often hath the blooi 

 n forth from the body most miserably by a fresh wound? Yet it hai 

 en easy to have stopt it by laying on a spider's web. 



The spider's web is put into the unguent against Tetters, and appliei 

 the swellings of the fundament, it consumes them without pain. .Mar 

 llus Empiricus. Pliny saith it cures runnings of the eyes, and laid 01 

 th oil, it heals up wounds in the joints. Some rather use the ashes o 

 ; webs with Polenia and wine. Our chirurgians (surgeons) cure wart; 

 us: "They wrap a spider's ordinary web into the fashion of a ball, an( 

 ring it on the wart, they set it on fire, and so let it burn to ashes, b: 

 s means the wart is rooted out by the roots, and will never grow again 

 ircellus Empiricus was wont to use the web of spiders found in th( 

 'press tree in a remedy for the Gout to ease the pains." — Mouffet, "Th 

 '.eater of Insects," 1658, p. 1023. 



Many of the illogical statements herein made have been brushec 

 tde in the journey medicine has taken since that date. Let us quQt( 

 follows : -' 



"Telia Aranearum, Cobweb. — Every one knows what this is, and hovi 

 Dduced. It appears not in medicinal prescriptions, but as accident, foi 

 nt of other helps, has taught its use to common people for stopping 

 )od in a fresh wound. And this it seems to do by its extraordinary fine 

 ss; which makes it adhere to, and stop up the mouths of the vessels, sc 

 to prevent the effusion of their contents." — Quincy's Compleat English Dis 

 isatory, 1749. 



"Aranearum Telae Pharm. Edinb., Cobwebs. — These are applied by th( 

 mmon people for stopping the bleeding of wounds; which they effect 

 t by any styptic power, but by adhering to the part, and closing th< 

 ifices of the vessels." — Lewis' Materia Medica, London, 1768. 



That the use of both the insect and its web were authoritativel) 

 tisidered as remedies, is evidenced in such works as The Nezv Lon- 

 n Dispensatory, Salmon (first edition, 1677), from the second edi- 

 n of which, 1682, we quote as follows concerning the spider as i 

 nedial agent: 



I. "The Spider being made into a Plaister and laid to the Wrists anc 

 mples cures Agues, chiefly Quartans. So also if they be put into a Nut- 

 ;11, and hung about the Neck. 2. The least kind called Lycos, applyed tc 

 ; Temples, Cures Tertians." 



Although the date of the therapeutic introduction of cobweb anc 

 ;der is lost in antiquity, cobweb has never been abandoned as e 

 nedy, and that, too, notwithstanding the advent of cinchona, which 

 w dominates the field in which cobweb was one of the former fa 



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