|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre: her bite is reputed very dangerous, sometimes mortal. The
countryman declares this for a fact and the doctor does not always
dare deny it. In the neighbourhood of Pujaud, not far from
Avignon, the harvesters speak with dread of Theridion lugubre, {1}
first observed by Leon Dufour in the Catalonian mountains;
according to them, her bite would lead to serious accidents. The
Italians have bestowed a bad reputation on the Tarantula, who
produces convulsions and frenzied dances in the person stung by
her. To cope with 'tarantism,' the name given to the disease that
follows on the bite of the Italian Spider, you must have recourse
to music, the only efficacious remedy, so they tell us. Special
The Life of the Spider |
