Did, when a very little boy at school,
Eat Spiders, spread upon his bread and butter.
Conradus, bishop of Constance, at the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, drank off a Spider that had fallen into his cup of wine, while he was busied in the consecration of the elements; “yet did he not receive the least hurt or damage thereby.”[1211]
We learn from Poggio, the Florentine, that Zisca, the great and victorious reformer of Bohemia, was such an epicure, that he only asked for, as his share of the plunder, what he was pleased to call “the cobwebs, which hung from the roofs of the farmers’ houses.” It is said, however, that this was but one of his witty circumlocutions to express the hams, sausages, and pig-cheeks, for which Bohemia has always been celebrated.[1212]
For the bite of all Spiders, according to Pliny, the best remedies are “a cock’s brains, taken in oxycrate with a little pepper; five ants, swallowed in drink; sheep’s dung applied in vinegar; and Spiders of any kind, left to putrify in oil.”[1213] Another proper remedy, says this writer, is, “to present before the eyes of a person stung another Spider of the same description, a purpose for which they are preserved when found dead. Their husks also,” he continues, “found in a dry state, are beaten up and taken in drink for a similar purpose. The young of the weasel, too, are possessed of a similar property.”[1214]
Among the remedies given by Pliny for diseases of eyes, is mentioned “the cobweb of the common fly-Spider, that which lines its hole more particularly. This,” he continues, “applied to the forehead across the temples, in a compress of some kind or other, is said to be marvellously useful for the cure of defluxions of the eyes; the web must be taken, however, and applied by the hands of a boy who has not
arrived at the years of puberty; the boy, too, must not show himself to the patient for three days, and during those three days neither of them must touch the ground with his feet uncovered. The white Spider with very elongated, thin legs, beaten up in old oil, forms an ointment which is used for the cure of albugo. The Spider, too, whose web, of remarkable thickness, is generally found adhering to the rafters of houses, applied in a piece of cloth, is said to be curative of defluxions of the eyes.”[1215]
As a remedy for the ears, Pliny says: “The thick pulp of a Spider’s body, mixed with oil of roses, is used for the ears; or else the pulp applied by itself with saffron or in wool.”[1216]
For fractures of the cranium, Pliny says, cobwebs are applied, with oil and vinegar; the application never coming away till a cure has been effected. Cobwebs are good, too, he continues, for stopping the bleeding of wounds made in shaving.[1217] They are still used for this purpose, as also the fur from articles made of beaver.
In Ben Jonson’s Stable of News, Almanac says of old Penny boy (as a skit upon his penuriousness), that he