“REDBACK―SPIDER BITE AND MAGNESIUM SULPHATE TREATMENT A CLINICAL STUDY OF FOUR CASES

Spiders are found everywhere, and though the majority are harmless the few that are poisonous are often underestimated in their harmfulness. Of the poisonous varieties, the Latrodectus mactans, more commonly called in the United States of America the “BlackWidow―(becauseof its color which is shiny black and its habit of killing its mate), and the clinical manifestations follow ing its bite, are familiar to American and Latin American physi cians because of the prevalence of the spider in the United States, especially in the southern and western states, and in South America. Bogen (1) states that 150 cases have been reported by thirty physicians in the United States alone. I wish to invite the attention of those who are interested in the clinical aspect of spider bite to a special kind of poisonous spider commonly found in some parts of the Philippines, particularly Mindanao and neighboring islands. Sivickis (10) and Fioteo have had this spider identified at the United States National Museum at Washington, D. C., as Latrodectus hassellii. This paper is presented without any claim of priority to the study of the clinical manifestations following “redback―spider bite or to a special treatment for them but to help acquaint other physicians practicing in tropical and subtropical countries with the clinical symptoms after the bite of the “redback†• spider inasmuch as standard text books of tropical medicine give no satisfactory discussion of symptoms after a spider bite, and to suggest a line of treatment which the author believes to be very efficacious judging from his own limited but typical cases. The following description of the spider has a threefold purpose