Perotti states that the tarantula--that is, the spider so called--
was not met with in Italy in former times, but that in his day it
had become common, especially in Apulia, as well as in some other
districts. He deserves, however, no great confidence as a
naturalist, notwithstanding his having delivered lectures in
Bologna on medicine and other sciences. He at least has neglected
to prove his assertion, which is not borne out by any analogous
phenomenon observed in modern times with regard to the history of
the spider species. It is by no means to be admitted that the
tarantula did not make its appearance in Italy before the disease
ascribed to its bite became remarkable, even though tempests more
violent than those unexampled storms which arose at the time of
the Black Death in the middle of the fourteenth century had set
the insect world in motion; for the spider is little if at all
susceptible of those cosmical influences which at times multiply
locusts and other winged insects to a wonderful extent, and compel
them to migrate.
The symptoms which Perotti enumerates as consequent on the bite of
the tarantula agree very exactly with those described by later
writers.
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