7. ns 
= -_ . 1.” °-” s —— ee 
APPENDIX. 361 
few minutes after being bitten. Of course, however, experiments of this 
kind are greatly invalidated by the fact that it cannot be determined 
whether the death of the insects resulted from poison, or from the mu- 
tilation produced by the entrance of so formidable a weapon as a spider’s 
fangs. 
Dr. Alfred Dugés gives an account of a little girl patient who had 
been bitten by one of those enormous spiders, quite common in Guanajuato, 
Mexico, which Mr. Leon Becker has named Metriopelma breyeri. The 
wound presented an oblong, tumefied border, about three lines high, of a 
livid violaceous color, filled with a serosity which he was not able to ex- 
amine. The centre of the tumor was concave, and filled with red pus. 
Kight days after the accident there was little pain, but no general symp- 
toms. Dr. Dugés was not able to follow up the case, but thinks that if 
there had been any serious consequences of the bite the child would have 
been brought back to him for further treatment.1 
1“Tnsect Life,” Vol. II., No. 2, 1889, page 47. 
