OX ARACHNIDA. 
453 
people are pretty well recovered from the fright which it 
occasioned in his time, and no longer believe that it can be 
the cause of the malady which was imputed to it. The bite 
of the three species of tarantula which he has described, 
occasioned maladies, the symptoms of which were different. 
Those which followed the bite of one of them, were, according 
to him, very terrific, and sometimes assumed all the charac- 
ters of a malignant fever. The patient often died of this 
malady, or if the symptoms were mitigated, he fell into a me- 
lancholy of a peculiar kind, and of which music alone could 
cure him. But we are at present aware, that the tarantula 
never occasioned any such disease, which was merely feigned , 
accordingly the bite of this animal is no longer dreaded. 
Nevertheless, we cannot avoid noticing some observations 
in the Encyclopedic Methodique , which prove that sometimes 
the bite of the araneides is followed by accidents more or less 
grievous. In the southern part of Provence, a young peasant 
girl, when sitting, found herself stung in the right thigh ; when 
she was about to rise, on shaking herself, there fell out a very 
large spider, which the pressure of her hand had killed. She 
had crushed it at the moment on the wound, and experienced 
only a trifling swelling round the place which was bitten, 
and slight cramps in the thigh and leg, which were removed 
by time, and a sudorific drink. A farmer of the isles of 
Hyeres, aged more than sixty years, according to the report of 
his children, was bitten by a large spider, in gathering up a 
sheaf of corn. This bite at first occasioned only a slight in- 
flammation, to which the man paid but little attention. But 
the inflammation soon very considerably increased, and ter- 
minated some time after in mortification and death, the 
remedies which were employed being found altogether in- 
adequate to stop the progress of the disorder. From these 
facts, we may conclude, that under certain circumstances, the 
bite of the araneides may be dangerous. The more or less 
