Tarentula hispanica

Volume I — Special Symptomatology

Officinal Preparations. — Triturations of the whole spider.

Analogues. — Agaricus {?), Cimicifuga (?), Crotalus (?),Na,ja {?), Lachesis (?), My gale (?), Stramonium (?).

[The extraordinary pathogenesis of this remedy, published in the North American Journal of Homoeopathy, is one of the creations which I am not ready to accept. I would call attention to the criticism of Dr. S. A. Jones, in the American Homozopathic Observer, which I fully endorse. — Hale.]

0 Chorea, according to the testimony of several physicians, who assert it has been useful in some of the more aggravated forms.

Volume II — Special Therapeutics

The singular accounts of the effects of the bite of this spider are so mixed up with superstition and exaggeration, that it is almost impossible to extricate the true from the false.

I make no doubt that the bite of all the venomous spiders causes, sometimes, very singular nervous phenomena. I have

myself witnessed some strange aberrations of the mental and nervous spheres from the venom of the field spiders of this climate. In the tropics all venoms are more intense. The Tarantula is accounted the most poisonous of all, and in sensitive organizations may cause some very extraordinary manifestations.

The most striking phenomena of Tarantula-poisoning are the choreic disorders , more severe and terrible than are caused by any other poison. It is said to have cured the worst cases of St. Vitus’s dance.

It is alleged to have cured some spasmodic hysterical symptoms in women, arising from uterine irritation.

It appears to affect the motor side of the cord in a manner different from any other known remedy, unless we except the Mygale.