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abundance : but I am afraid I fhall have nothing, 
more to fay, than that the furprizing cure of the 
bite of the Tarantula, by mufic, has not the leaft 
truth in it; and that it is only an invention of the 
people, who want to get a little money, by dancing 
when they fay the tarantifm begins. 1 make no 
doubt but fometimes the heat of the climate contri- 
butes very much to warm their imagination, and 
to throw them into a delirium, which may be in 
fome meafure cured by mulic : but feveral experi- 
ments have been tried with the Tarantula; and 
neither men nor animals, after the bite, have had 
any other complaint, but a very trifling inflammation 
upon the part, like thofe produced by the bite of a 
fcorpion, which go off by themfelves without any 
danger at all. In Sicily, where the fummer is flill 
warmer than in any part of the kingdom of Naples, 
the Tarantula is never dangerous, and mufic is never 
employed for the cure of the pretended tarantifm. 
It is no doubt very extraordinary, that a man of fenfe, 
and a phyfician of great learning, as Baglivi, fhould 
have been fatisfied with the account of this dis- 
order ; and that, inflead of examining the fadt by 
experiments, he fhould rather have tried to explain 
it : but even philofophers like very much to meet 
with wonderful and extraordinary things, and though 
they are againft all reafon, flill they want them to 
be true, and endeavour to find out the caufe of them. 
Every year this furprizing dilorder lofes ground ; 
and I am perfuaded, that in a very little while it 
will entirely lofe its credit. The Neapolitan phy- 
ficians all look upon the Tarantula in the fame light, 
particularly after the ingenious book publifhed on 
this 
