“Of the cod or bags of Spiders, M. Bon caused a sort of drops to be made, in imitation of those of Goddard, because they contain a great quantity of volatile salt.”[1228]
Moufet, in Theatrum Insectorum, has the following: “Also that knotty whip of God, and mock of all physicians, the Gowt, which learned men say can be cured by no remedy, findes help and cure by a Spider layed on, if it be taken at that time when neither sun nor moon shine, and the hinder legs pulled off, and put into a deer’s skin and bound to the pained foot, and be left on it for some time. Also for the most part we finde those people to be free from the gowt of hands or feet (which few medicaments can doe), in whose houses the Spiders breed much, and doth beautifie them with her tapestry and hangings.… Our chirurgeons cure warts thus: They wrap a Spider’s ordinary web into the fashion of a ball, and laying it on the wart, they set it on fire, and so let it burn to ashes; by this means the wart is rooted out by the roots, and will never grow again.… I cannot but repeat a history that I formerly heard from
our dear friend worthy to be believed, Bruerus. A lustfull nephew of his, having spent his estate in rioting and brothel-houses, being ready to undertake anything for money, to the hazzard of his life; when he heard of a rich matron of London, that was troubled with a timpany, and was forsaken of all physicians as past cure, he counterfeited himself to be a physician in practice, giving forth that he would cure her and all diseases. But as the custom is, he must have half in hand, and the other half under her hand, to be payed when she was cured. Then he gave her a Spider to drink, as supposing her past cure, promising to make her well in three dayes, and so in a coach with four horses he presently hastes out of town, lest there being a rumor of the death of her (which he supposed to be very neer) he should be apprehended for killing her. But the woman shortly after by the force of the venome was cured, and the ignorant physician, who was the author of so great a work, was not known. After some moneths this good man returns, not knowing what had happened, and secretly enquiring concerning the state of that woman, he heard she was recovered. Then he began to boast openly, and to ask her how she had observed her diet, and he excused his long absence, by reason of the sickenesse of a principal friend, and that he was certain that no harm could proceed from so healthful physick; also he asked confidently for the rest of his reward, and to be given him freely.”[1229]
“A third kind of Spiders,” says Pliny, “also known as the ‘phalangium,’ is a Spider with a hairy body, and a head of enormous size. When opened, there are found in it two small worms, they say: these, attached in a piece of deer’s skin, before sunrise, to a woman’s body, will prevent conception, according to what Cæcilius, in his Commentaries, says. This property lasts, however, for a year only; and, indeed, it is the only one of all the anti-conceptives that I feel myself at liberty to mention, in favour of some women whose fecundity, quite teeming with children (plena liberis), stands in need of some such respite.”[1230]
Mr. John Aubrey, in the chapter of his Miscellanies devoted to Magick, gives the following: “To cure a Beast that is sprung, (that is) poisoned (It mostly lights upon Sheep):
Take the little red Spider, called a tentbob (not so big as a great pin’s-head), the first you light upon in the spring of the year, and rub it in the palm of your hand all to pieces: and having so done, make water on it, and rub it in, and let it dry; then come to the beast and make water in your hand, and throw it in his mouth. It cures in a matter of an hour’s time. This rubbing serves for a whole year, and it is no danger to the hand. The chiefest skill is to know whether the beast be poisoned or no.”[1231] Mr. Aubrey had this receipt from Mr. Pacy.
In the year 1709, M. Bon, of Montpellier, communicated to the Royal Academy of that city a discovery which he had made of a new kind of silk, from the very fine threads with which several species of Spiders (probably the Aranea diadema and others closely allied to it) inclose their eggs; which threads were found to be much stronger than those composing the Spider’s web. They were easily separated, carded, and spun, and then afforded a much finer thread than that of the silk-worm, but, according to Reaumur, inferior to this both in luster and strength. They were also found capable of receiving all the different dyes with equal facility. M. Bon carried his experiments so far as to obtain two or three pairs of stockings and gloves of this silk, which were of an elegant gray color, and were presented, as samples, to the Academy. As the Spiders also were much more prolific, and much more hardy than silk-worms, great expectations were formed of benefit of the discovery. Reaumur accordingly took up and prosecuted the inquiry with zeal. He computed that 663,522 Spiders would scarcely furnish a single pound of silk; and conceived that it would be impossible to provide the necessarily immense numbers with flies, their natural food. This obstacle, however, was soon removed, by his finding that they would subsist very well upon earth-worms chopped, and upon the soft ends or roots of feathers. But a new obstacle arose from their unsocial propensities, which proved insurmountable; for though at first they seemed to feed quietly, and even work together, several of them at the same web, yet they soon began to quarrel, and the strongest devoured the weakest, so that of several hundred, placed together in a box, but three or four remained alive after a few days; and nobody could propose to keep and feed each separately. The silk was found to be
naturally of different colors; particularly white, yellow, gray, sky-blue, and coffee-colored brown.[1232]
A Spider raiser in France, more recently, is said to have tamed eight hundred Spiders, which he kept in a single apartment for their silk.[1233]
De Azara states that in Paraguay a Spider forms a spherical cocoon for its eggs, an inch in diameter, of a yellow silk, which the inhabitants spin on account of the permanency of the color.[1234]