Synonym. Lycosa Tarantula. Natural order. Araneideae. Common name. Tarantula. Preparation. Triturations of the liver spider.
GENERAL ANALYSIS AND THERAPEUTICS.
The action of this position only from other spider poisons in that it is more persistent, the cerebro-spinal system being the seat of its primary effects, through which it causes, together with restlessness and great mental and physical depression, choreic phenomena of a marked character, being more severe and terrible in their manifestations than are those produced by great sexual excitement. The chief characteristic is that the paroxysms are quieted, sometimes entirely removed through the influence of music, a cure sometimes resulting therefrom. It is said that the patients will cause their bodies to move to the measure of the music, and are often led to execute a kind of a dance. Its chief clinical use, accordingly, is in chorea, with it is said to have cured in the most aggravated forms. It is also useful in hysteria, and some other nervous affections of a like character, such as hystero-epilepsy, etc. According to Allen, “its curative powers in these and other forms of mental disturbance rest upon a very slender basis, for it is probable that most of the mental symptoms attributed to the bite of this spider are purely imaginary.” It has also been used in nymphomania, and in dysmenorrhoea, menstrual irregularities, and various forms of disease of the female sexual organs, with the characteristic nervous phenomena of the drug. Spinal irritation. Multiple sclerosis. Intermittent fever, the choreic convulsions.
Compare. Agaricus, Cimic., Mygale, Stramonium
ALLEN CORSON COWPERTHWAITE was born at Cape May, New Jersey, May 3, 1848, son of Joseph C. and Deborah (Godfrey) Cowperthwaite. He attended medical lectures at the University of Iowa in 1867-1868, and was graduated from the Hahnemann Medical College of Philadelphia in 1869. He practiced his profession first in Illinois, and then in Nebraska. In 1877 he became Dean and Professor of Materia Medica in the recently organized Homeopathic Department of the State University of Iowa, holding the position till 1892. In 1884 he accepted the chair of Materia Medica, Pharmacology, and Clinical Medicine in the Homeopathic Medical College of the University of Michigan. He removed to Chicago in 1892, and became Professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics in the Chicago Homeopathic Medical College. From 1901 he also served as president of that College. He is the author of various works, notably "Insanity in its Medico-Legal Relations" (1876), "A Textbook of Materia Medica and Therapeutics" (1880), of "Gynecology" (1888), and of "The Practice of Medicine " (1901).