"SamuelHopkinsAdams-ThePoisonBugaboo" - читать интересную книгу автора (Adams Samuel Hopkins)

curious creature secrete a poison, and that their trail over human flesh is
marked by a sort of rash, sometimes followed by fever. As showing that this is
not an invariable phenomenon, I may set the circumstantial account given me by
Captain Robert Kemp Wright, who, at his place at Pitch Lake, Trinidad, saw a
good-sized centipede crawl across the forehead of his sleeping son. Not daring
to make a move, as the centipede is supposed to strike very swiftly, Captain
Wright was compelled to stand still while it slowly made its way to the pillow
and thence to the floor, where it was killed. The boy, who had neither waked nor
moved, showed absolutely no trace of the reptile's course.
THE DEADLY TARANTULA Ч IN PRINT
The only direct evidence which has come to me regarding the bite of the
hundred-legged crawler was from an English naturalist whom I met in Venezuela.
He was bitten on the ankle by a centipede nearly a foot long. So severe was the
laceration that his sock was clotted with blood before he could get it off. The
two punctures were marked. Almost immediately the ankle began to swell. The pain
he describes as being equal to a bad toothache. It kept him awake all that
night. He had some fever, which, however, he attributes rather to the loss of
sleep than to any specific action of the poison, as there were no other general
symptoms. In the morning the pain had abated a good deal, and he believes that
he could have gone about his pursuits had he been able to get his sock and shoe
on. He noted some discoloration about the wound. Late in the afternoon he was
hobbling about. A week in a carpet slipper was the extent of disability which he
suffered. On these evidences it would seem just, for the present, to set down
the scorpion and the centipede as painful, rather than dangerous, assailants.
Diseased imagination could invent no creature more horrific of appearance than
the tarantula. Its bristling and hostile aspect, the swift ferocity of its rush,
its great size, and its enthusiastic preference for combat as against flight,
are sufficient to account for the fear and respect in which it is generally
held. But, though several species of the huge spider are native to the United
States, and others frequently drop out of banana bunches from South or Central
America, to the discomfiture of the unsuspecting grocer, no authentic instance
of death from tarantula poison in this country is obtainable. St. Louis papers
please copy, particularly that one which, several years ago, announced in
appropriately black headlines: IN TWO WEEKS Three Men Have Died From Bites of
Tarantulas, proceeding to explain that the victims were banana handlers in the
wholesale fruit district. No names were supplied Ч a common phenomenon in this
class of obituary notice. Search in the coroner's records failed to bring to
light any case of the sort, and an exhaustive inquiry in the fruit district was
equally unproductive. The report was a pure fake.
Apparently of the same nature is the "news story" of a Californian who,
presumably mistaking a tarantula for a fragrant floweret, was bitten on the nose
and "died in great agony." That, of course, is the proper way to die under such
circumstances. They all do it Ч in print.
Now let us see about the "agony." Herbert H. Smith, the naturalist and
collector, saw a man bitten on the bare foot by a tarantula (Mygale) so hard as
to draw blood. There was very little swelling, and the man paid no heed to the
occurrence, but went on with his work.
I have talked with a Southern Pacific Railroad fireman who was jabbed on the
wrist by a large tarantula. Some years before, he had been stung on the cheek by
a "bald" hornet. He wasn't inclined to make any choice between the two except