During this mournful Scene, all the usual Alexipharmick and Cordial Medicines are of no Service; for notwithstanding their repeated Use, the Patient growing by degrees more melancholy, stupid, and strangely timorous, in a short Time expires, unless Musick be called to his Assistance, which alone, without the Help of Medicine, performs the Cure.
For at the first Sound of the Musical Instrument, altho’ the Sick lie, as it were, in an Apoplectick Fit, they begin by Degrees to move their Hands and Feet, till at last they get up, and fall to Dancing with wonderful Vigour, at first for three or four Hours, then they are put to Bed, refreshed from their sweating, for a short time, and repeat the Exercise with the same Vehemence, perceiving no Weariness or Weakness from it, but professing they grow stronger and nimbler the more they dance.
At this Sport they usually spend Twelve Hours a Day, and it continues Three or Four Days; by which time they are generally freed from all their Symptoms, which do nevertheless attack ’em again about the same time the next Year; and if they do not take Care to prevent this Relapse by Musick, they fall into a Jaundice, Want of Appetite, universal Weakness, and such like Diseases; which are every Year increased, if Dancing be neglected, till at last they prove incurable.
As Musick is the common Cure, so they who are bitten are pleas’d some with one Sort of it, some with another; one is raised with a Pipe, another with a Tymbrel; one with a Harp, another with a Fiddle; so that the Musicians make sometimes several Essays before they can accommodate their Art to the Venom; but this is constant and certain, not withstanding this Variety, that they all require the quickest and briskest Tunes, and are never moved by a slow, dull Harmony.
While the Tarantati, or Affected, are Dancing, they lose in a manner the Use of all their Senses, like so many Drunkards, do many Ridiculous and Foolish Tricks, talk and act obscenely and rudely, take great Pleasure in playing with Vine-Leaves, with naked Swords, red Cloths, and the like; and on the other Hand can’t bear the Sight of any thing black; so that if any By-stander happen to appear in that Colour, he must immediately withdraw, otherwise they relapse into their Symptoms with as much Violence as ever.
It may afford some Light towards Understanding the Nature of this Poison, to observe that Apulia is the hottest Part of all Italy, lying Eastward, and having all the Summer long but very little Rain to temper the Heats, so that the Inhabitants, as one of that Country observes [(50)], do breath an Air, as it were, out of a fiery Furnace; hence their Temperament is dry, and adust, as appears by their being generally lean, passionate, impatient, ready to Action, quick-witted, very subject to inflammatory Distempers, Phrensies, Melancholy, and the like, upon which Account there are more mad People in this, than in all the other Parts of Italy; nay, what in other Countries is but a light Melancholy, arises here to a great Heigth; for Women in a Chlorosis do suffer almost the same Symptoms as Persons poisoned by the Tarantula do, and are cured the same Way; and in like manner the Venom of the Scorpion does here in Effects and Cure agree very much with that of this Spider.
From all this History it sufficiently appears, that those that are bitten by a Tarantula, do thereupon become Delirous, and that in order to account for their surprizing Symptoms; the Nature of a Delirium, from which many of them proceed, ought to be understood.
Such is the Constitution of the Human Œconomy, that as upon the Impression of outward Objects made upon the Organs, and by the Fluid of the Nerves conveyed to the Common Sensory; different Species are excited there, and represented to the Mind; so likewise upon this Representation, at the Command and Pleasure of the Soul, part of the same Fluid is determin’d into the Muscles, and mixing with the Arterial Blood there, performs all the Variety of Voluntary Motions and Actions.
This Order has been always so constant in Us, that at length by a kind of natural Habitude, without the Intervention of the Reasoning Faculty, Representations made to the Mind do immediately and necessarily produce suitable Motions in the Bodily Organs. When therefore these Representations are irregular, the Actions consequent to them must necessarily be so too.
This being premis’d, it may perhaps be probably said, that a Delirium is the Representation and various Composition of several Species to the Mind, without any Order or Coherence; together, at least most commonly, with irregular, or, as it were, undesigned Motions of the Body; that is, such a wandring and irregular Motion of the Nervous Fluid, whereby several Objects are represented to the Mind, and upon this Representation divers Operations perform’d by the Body, tho’ those Objects are not impress’d upon the Organs, nor those Operations or Motions deliberately commanded by the Soul.