206 



(6) He could liandie poison oaA: or ivy with impunity. 



(7) He was bitten on the 19th of October, 1887. He was hauling wood at the time. 

 It was a damp cold morning and he could not have been overheated. As soon as the 

 sensation of pain had i)assed off the man felt no further iueoavenience till towards 

 the middle of the day. (He described the pain from the sting as somewhat similar 

 to the sting of a wasp.) About half jDast 11 o'clock he came to the house and told me 

 that he had been bitten by a spider. I treated the matter lightly, thinking he would 

 have been dead by that time if it was going to hurt him at all, but he complained of 

 pains running through his whole b.ody. Finally, he went to town (only 1 mile dis- 

 tant), saying he was going to get whisky. About 1 o'clock he came home. Said 

 he felt no better. Said the pain had settled in his bowels. In a short while he com- 

 menced to have spasms. (He told me he had only bought 5 cents' worth of corn 

 whisky.) When the spasm came on I was greatly frightened. As I knew of no rem- 

 edy but whisky, I gave it to him. In all, I gave him three half pints. He seemed re- 

 lieved of pain about 3 o'clock, and did some work about the barn. About 4 o'clock the 

 pains came on again and the spasms with them. He had only two spasms. He never 

 recovered from the second one, but remained in a state of unconsciousness till his 

 death. 



I have another man working for me who was bitten by one of the spiders about 

 three years ago. I showed him the spider which Colonel Keogh forwarded to you, 

 and he recognized it at once as being exactly like the one which had bitten him. As 

 this man's experience with a spider bite is rather peculiar, I will give it to you as he 

 has told me. He was at work in a corn field about the middle of June. It was the 

 afternoon of the day. He went to a spring near by for a drink of water. While 

 resting a moment at the spring the spider bit him on the ankle. He spit tobacco 

 juice on the sting and soon felt no pain. (He describes the pain from the sting as 

 more like a brier scratch.) He resumed the work, but in an hour or so felt a sudden 

 shock or pain run through his whole body. As one shock would i^ass off another 

 would come on. He unhitched his horse and attempted to ride home, but soon fell 

 off the horse in an unconscious condition. His employer found him by the road side 

 and had him taken home. This gentleman has since told me the negro seemed per- 

 fectly crazy. He told what had bitten him between spasms of pain. The only remedy 

 he knew of was whisky. He gave the negro three pints, and it had no intoxicating 

 effects. The negro had spasms one after another for several days. It was three weeks 

 before he stopped having them, and it was two months before he was able to do any 

 work. He has not entirely recovered yet. Whenever he becomes overheated he has to 

 stox3 woik. He has a numb sensation pass over him. His ankle did not swell at all. 

 These same kind of pimples which I noticed on the neck of the man that died ap- 

 peared on his ankle, and break out afresh every time he becomes overheated from 

 exercise. 



The sinder—Latrodectus mactans — is cougeueric with the well-kiiovru 

 ''Malmiguiatte" of South l^uroi^e {Latrodectus malmigniatiis ^Yalc]^.), 

 about the veuomous nature of whose bite there is so much contradic- 

 tory testimonj^ 



It will be interestiug in this connection to quote a few of the pub- 

 lished opinions of naturalists upon this subject. 



In the Annals of the Entomological Society of France for 1812, page 

 205, is a notice of different facts which confirm the venomous property 

 of Latrodectus mahniguiatus^ by Dr. Graells, translated from the Spanish 

 by Leon Fairmaire. He states in brief that prior to 1830, in the dis- 

 trict of Tarragone (Department of Cologne), there was no knowledge of 

 any spider which gave poisonous bites, but that in the years 1830, 1833, 



