than a half dollar, began to turn black, and threatened gangrene. Dr. Perry, who happened to be in her neighbourhood at this time, called to see her, and ordered the cortex ruber in substance. By the use of this, and some simple topical applications, the mortified part cast off, leaving a spot of an irregular shape, very much resembling a burn.

During the soreness of her hand she was again seized with fits, but they were not so violent as formerly.

When I saw her, which was, I think, on the fourteenth of the month, she lay in a state of stupor similar to that I mentioned above.

The people about her remarked that her hearing was very acute, and that she had been known to understand the conversation of persons in a whisper, though in another room. I did not witness any instance of this; but the lady who related it to me, related it from her own knowledge, and is of the first respectability, and unquestionable veracity. The young woman was then at her house, and from other instances of the extreme sensibility of her nerves, which I witnessed myself, and the aptitude I observed in that sensibility to change from one set of organs to another, I make no doubt of the fact. Her hand, soon after this period, began to discharge a very unusual kind of matter. It was as green, and almost as thick as inspissated beef gall. This matter was discharged in such quantities, for two or three weeks, as to require the sore to be dressed three times a day; and although several folds of linen were laid over the dressings, they would be soaked through before the next dressing, and a large quantity of matter collected on her hand. The fits abated when the discharge began, and she has since had no return of them, and nearly five months have now elapsed. The discharge gradually lessened, and the sore healed. Once during this period the discharge suddenly stopped, upon which she grew very unwell, and was threatened with fits, but upon its re-appearing she grew better.

She is a girl of good habit of body, never having been subject to any particular disease, and, in general, very healthy. Her temperament I should place in the sanguineo-choleric. It was observed by the family, that during the discharge from her hand the arm of that side was considerably diminished in size.

I never observed her complaints accompanied with any pyrexia, nor was her flesh, during her illness, diminished in any considerable degree.

VOL. I.

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I once saw her in a partial paroxysm, when she appeared very sick at her stomach, and kept continually retching. I ordered some warm water to be given her, but she did not puke it up; and what she evacuated did not appear to come from her stomach. It was a mucous matter, appearing to come from the mucous follicles about the fauces, and, I conclude, an increased secretion of that fluid, as she evacuated considerable quantities of it. It was thus that she threw up pins and needles, which, in the agony attending her fits, she would, I conceive, unwittingly put in her mouth, and in this way get rid of them; which gave rise to a vulgar report, that she swallowed those substances, and then puked them up.

A case so replete with the wonderful is not, perhaps, easily to be found in the annals of medicine; and it is to be wished that a more accurate account had been kept of it. But from the length of time she was sick, and from the circumstance of no one physician attending her constantly, and a great part of the time none at all, this was impracticable.

I have endeavoured to collect the leading and most prominent symptoms, and rather to lessen than exaggerate those which partook so much of the marvellous.

In relating thus much, I may, perhaps, be charged with presumption by some; but I have no fear of this from those who will take the trouble to inquire into the numbers and credibility of those who witnessed every part of my narrative.

Respecting the insect which I have supposed to be the cause, it seems natural to make some remarks. It may be objected that the tarantula (phalangium apulianum) is not an inhabitant of our climate. And this objection, so far as I know, is well founded; that being a name given to a particular species of spider in Italy. But I think we have a spider in this country whose economy is somewhat similar to the description given of that; and, if it be not the same species, may be equally poisonous. I will not contend about names. That she was poisoned by a spider, considering every circum→ stance, will seem hard to deny. She was heard to say, by a person near her, at the time she was at the stack, "O, what a great spider there is!" And then the first complaint being in that arm, and ending in the same, and a sore of an unusual kind appearing in the very spot where she all along had said the spider had bitten her, are pretty strong proofs of her having been bitten; not to mention that such a strange illness would naturally lead us to look for an unusual cause. In some of the symptoms we observe a similarity to those occasioned

by the Italian spider, but here we cannot trace a parallel clear through.

The spider of Italy produces a disorder which, as their physicians say, is cured by music. Here the parallel fails. In this case the patient was evidently cured by a spontaneous discharge of matter at the very spot where we suppose the poison first entered the blood. In respect to those remarkable effects, the consequence of increased sensibility, we have no parallel that I know of. In respect to the partiality for, and antipathy to certain colours, the parallel is exact in the two countries. In respect to music being the cause of the patient's dancing, and also in its affording relief to the complaint, there is an exact similarity between this case and those described by the Italians. In respect to the partiality shown for her kindred at one time, and the remarkable aversion evinced at another, I know of no parallel.

The lateness of the season in which I have supposed the spider to have appeared has not been offered as any objection to its appearance; nor will that be adduced by any one who recollects the extreme mildness of the fall months, and the month of December that year. It was observed to me by the father of the young woman, that the warmth of the day on which his daughter went to the stack was such, that she and another young woman took off their outside garments, and sat in the door to work. It may be proper to remark, that when I first saw her I could perceive no mark upon the spot where she supposed the spider had bitten her. This was, however, as late as the fortieth day; and if it had been earlier examined, it is not very probable that any very perceptible mark from an insect which inflicts a wound in the manner of the tarantula could have been discerned; it not being by biting, but by pricking with a very fine pair of horns or forceps, and, at the same instant, spitting from its mouth the poisonous fluid upon the wound: therefore it cannot appear strange that the puncture should be scarcely if at all visible at first.

I consider the remarkable increase of sensibility as constituting a part of the disease; she never showing any signs of it when she was entirely out of her fits.

Perhaps this case may furnish us with some new light relative to the treatment of nervous diseases. If my theory be right, may we not expect much benefit from music in hysteria?

I have had one case only in which I had an opportunity of trying it it was an obstinate hysteric one. It was attended with the advantage I expected. It moderated the spasms, reduced them to order, and shortened the paroxysm.

ARTICLE II.

OBSERVATIONS on the PLANT called BONE-SET, and on other SPECIES of EUPATORIUM, tending to evince their anti-venomous Qualities. By JOHN STEVENS, Esq. of Hobocken. Communicated to Dr. MITCHILL, in a Letter dated July 5, 1803.

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GREEABLY to promise, I now send you some particulars respecting two or three species of a family of plants, which form a natural genus, designated by Linnæus under the title of Eupatorium. Professor Martyn, in his late edition of Miller's Gardener's Dictionary, has enumerated and described 49 different species of this genus, thirteen of which are natives of North-America, one only (Eupatorium Cannabinum, common hemp agrimony) is to be found in Europe, and the remaining thirty-five are from the East and West-Indies. Respecting the European species, Martyn tells us that "the whole plant has a very bitter taste: a handful of it vomits and purges smartly. An ounce of the root in decoction is a full dose, and is sometimes taken in the jaundice, dropsy, &c. but it is a rough medicine, and ought to be used with caution. Boerhaave gave an infusion of this plant to foment ulcers and putrid sores. Tourne fort informs us that the Turks cure the scurvy with it."

During the prevalence of the yellow fever in the city of New-York, my attention was attracted towards a plant commonly called by the country people in this neighbourhood Bone-set. I found it had long been in high reputation among them for the cure of intermittents; but it was now confidently asserted to be a specific against yellow fever. I at that time took some pains to gain information respecting so interesting a subject; and the result of my inquiries was highly favourable to the efficacy of this plant. A case, which occurred more immediately under my own eye, I will now give you. A strong, healthy young man, who lived about a mile from my house, occasionally attended the Hudson-market in New-York, where, at that time, the fever prevailed. On his return one day he was taken so suddenly ill as to be totally disabled from rowing his boat. A neighbour, seeing his distress, came off to his assistance, and took him home. He had every symptom which usually attends an attack of yellow fever. His wife put him to bed, and prepared for him a decoction of the leaves

of the bone-set, of which he drank very plentifully. It puked and purged him severely, and finally threw him into a most profuse perspiration.. In a few days he was able to go to work again. To be sure, it cannot be positively asserted that this man was attacked by yellow fever, but, from the circumstances of the case, it is highly probable.

During the prevalence of the fever in Philadelphia last summer, I addressed a few lines to the President of the Board of Health, recommending the use of the decoction of this plant in the hospital; but I have not learned that any trials were made of it.

This valuable plant is the Eupatorium Perfoliatum of Linnæus. I have lately discovered three other species, which are at present growing in my garden.

The wonderful properties ascribed to the Aya-pana and to the Vejuco du Guaco, which are unquestionably both of them species of Eupatorium, ought to excite the attention of the botanist and physician to investigate the medicinal qualities of the different species of this remarkable genus of plants.

Some very curious details are given respecting the vejuco du guaco, and the aya-pana, in the Philosophical Magazine, vol. xii. p. 36, and vol. xiii. p. 376, which I have extracted, and made a part of this communication.

The first is written by Don Pedro D'Orbies y Vargas, to Count Rumford, on the virtues of the plant by which the Indians at Santa-Fé preserve themselves against the bite of venomous serpents.

"The abundance. of venomous serpents found in the warm districts of America has rendered it necessary for the unfortunate Indians and negroes, who traverse the woods almost always barefooted, to search out the most efficacious remedies for the disagreeable effects produced by the bite of these animals. Of the remedies hitherto discovered, none is equal to the juice of a plant of the creeping kind, called vejuco du guaco; for it not only cures the maladies arising from the bite of serpents, but preserves from its effects those who have drunk of it before they are bitten; so that the negroes and Indians acquainted with this plant, lay hold, with their naked hands, of the most venomous serpents, without sustaining any injury from them. This knowledge, of which they formerly made a great mystery, gave them much importance in the country; and there is no doubt that they gained a great deal of money, both from those who were bitten by serpents, and