DEADLY SPIDER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22790, 27 January 1936, Page 16

DEADLY SPIDER

SEARCH FOR SERUM SOUTH AFRICAN SCIENTISTS. Hundreds of specimens of the.deadly button spider are being collected for scientific purposes by plague gangs and school children in the wheat districts of Capetown, South Africa. A farmer was bitten recently and recovered, but in the past a number of people have received fatal bites . Doctors in the Department of Public Health, and Dr S. H. Skaife, the entomologist, are collaborating in the first attempt ever made in South Africa to produce scientific serums for this poison. Already interesting results have been obtained.

“ It is undoubtedly a very venomous species with venom as deadly as that of the cobra, bulk for bulk,” said Dr S. H. Skaife. “ The button spider belongs to the notorious theridiidae family, and is similar and closely related to the ‘ black widow ’ of North America, the malmagnitte of France and the Katipo of Now Zealand. RABBITS IMMUNISED. “ Doctors in the public health laboratories in Capetown have been extracting the venom and experimenting with rabbits and white mice. A serum had been produced from the blood of a rabbit which has been made immune to the venom of one species of button spider. The task of rendering the rabbit immune to the actual bites of all species of the spider is now being carried out. The next step will probably be to immunise a horse or donkey so that an adequate supply of serum will become available. “ The symptoms of button spider venom in human beings are alarming. The patients become terror-stricken and are certain they are about to die. They run high temperatures. Pain may be

acute and partial paralysis has been noted. Within a few hours they may be dead. Traditional country remedies for the bite are not only useless —they are dangerous. “ Many people boil up the weed called ‘ kruidjie-roer-my-niet ’ and make the patient drunk on the concoction, but as a matter of fact the weed itself is poisonous and may do great harm. Alcohol, too, is useless. The only emergency treatment at present available is the usual snakebite treatment. Scarify the wound and rub in permanganate of potash as soon a,s possible to oxidise the venom. NESTS MADE IN CHAFF., “ For some reason deaths from the bite of the button spider appear to be confined to the Cape wheat belt,” continued Dr Skaife, “ although the spider is found elsewhere. This is probably due to the spiders making their nests in the chaff, where they live on locusts, beetles and Hies. Men working among the wheat are peculiarly liable to find a button spider down their necks or on their legs. The huge and hairy tarantula may appear more terrible than the button spider, but its bite, however painful, is harmless in comparison with the sinister red-hot bite of the button spider.. “ South Africa has other poisonous spiders, such as the lyeosa, which lives in the earth and seldom gives any trouble, but the button spider is a real menace. American doctors have not succeeded in finding a remedy, in spite of the number of patients taken into hospital at Los Angeles. I believe the research now in progress in Capetown will show results which will be valuable wherever the button spider does its deadly work.”