Death by spider bite

[NH Civil War Gal]

From the National Museum of Civil War Medicine (with permission)

"Death from a Spider Bite?"

A newspaper account from October 1862 describes the horrific death of a North Carolina soldier from a spider bite.

"Whilst putting on his boots, (at Drury's Bluff, where he was stationed) Captain [B.R.] W[illiams] unfortunately shut up a spider in one of them, which by frequent stings, infused sufficient poison into his system to produce death within eighteen hours, despite all the efforts of surgeons to counteract it."

Source:
"The Charlotte Democrat," Charlotte, North Carolina, October 14, 1862.

Image credit:
"The Spider's Web," from "The Playbook of Metals…" by John Henry Pepper, 1862)

 

[NH Civil War Gal]

An electrician and I actually each got a spider bite, at the same time, in my attic - we never saw the spider(s) nor felt it. We were lifting insulation to find a wire a mouse had chewed through. Both of us ended up at different hospitals about 12 hours later needing emergency treatment. It was summer and very hot and we had been bitten on our ankles and the red rash//streaks ran up the length of our legs and were incredibly and almost overwhelmingly painful. I ended up on IV antibiotics and an evening in the ER and he ended up on oral antibiotics. There is no doubt that if we hadn't received treatment, the outcomes would have been much worse for at least one of us.

 

[JOHN42768]

itsy bitsy spider done yea dirty for sure.

 

[NH Civil War Gal]

NH isn't known for brown recluses but the doctor's at the ER felt sure it was a BR bite. Come to find out that about 50% of biologists think they are here and the other 50% say they aren't. So who knows what it was - both of us could also have reacted to the bacteria that live on the fangs of spiders too.

But the whole area of my leg where it swelled was so incredibly painful that I couldn't even stand to have a sheet on my leg - nothing could touch it.

I'm actually surprised we don't hear more about spider bites or tick bites getting infected from CW stories than we do, unless they are filed under "other diseases that killed soldiers."

 

[Pollaco]

The little town that I live in supposedly has the honor of first finding a new species of poison spider. In addition to the Black Widow and the Brown Recluse we now have the Grey Widow. I do hope that news article was wrong.And I whole heartedly agree with NH Civil War Gal that it is surprising we don't hear more about spider bites.

 

[19thGeorgia]

I was bit on the arm by (probably) a black widow while asleep. Didn't need to go to a doctor, but my arm was numb for a week.

 

[NH Civil War Gal]

My mother wasn't bit, and remained very calm because she knew she had to, but decades ago, she was woken up by a spider crawling across her face in the night! Now that I'm thinking about it, I wonder if it crawled across dad's face too?

 

[turner ashby kidd]

@NH Civil War Gal very sorry to hear of your spider bite experience. Attic location suggest BR spider.
I have read 80% of people do Not have a severe reaction to a Brown Recluse (BR) bite. The other 20% it can be life threatening.

I think the media blew this out of proportion to scare everybody; fear sells. Have seen may types of spiders misidentified as Brown Recluse. At our home BR spiders and snakes found inside are escorted outside. Others go about their business eating smaller bugs.

Shake those boots in the morning !

 

[Fairfield]

Maine isn't home to any poisonous spiders so I am with turner ashby kidd on this. People are afraid of spiders--perhaps because they really are rather grim looking--but I am quite happy to share my house with them: they live in the basement and the attic while I live in the furnished areas. As long as they eat mosquitos, flies and black-flies, its "no skin off my nose".

However, suseptibility and allergic reactions vary and there certainly are people who are justifiably concerned. Fortunately, not me!

 

[NH Civil War Gal]

I'm not afraid of spiders at all - and I can't say I've ever seen any poisonous ones here in NH. I never set out to kill spiders either. I just know the bite I got from the one in the attic certainly made me sick!

 

[John Winn]

Maine isn't home to any poisonous spiders so I am with turner ashby kidd on this. People are afraid of spiders--perhaps because they really are rather grim looking--but I am quite happy to share my house with them: they live in the basement and the attic while I live in the furnished areas. As long as they eat mosquitos, flies and black-flies, its "no skin off my nose".

However, suseptibility and allergic reactions vary and there certainly are people who are justifiably concerned. Fortunately, not me!

That reminds me of an old Prairie Home Companion skit about the Fear Monger's Shoppe where Garrison said there were things that lived in your basement that didn't even have names that come up through your heating ducts at night and crawl all over your face and that's what leaves that crust in your eyes you sometimes have in the morning. Maybe best to get some tropical mosquito netting to sleep under.

 

[Fairfield]

leaves that crust in your eyes you sometimes have in the morning.

And my mother always told me that it was the Sandman!

We are being inundated by browntail caterpillars that have put some in the hospital tho' most of us merely develop rashes. Now THAT is worth dragging out the hazmat suit!

 

[bankerpapaw]

An electrician and I actually each got a spider bite, at the same time, in my attic - we never saw the spider(s) nor felt it. We were lifting insulation to find a wire a mouse had chewed through. Both of us ended up at different hospitals about 12 hours later needing emergency treatment. It was summer and very hot and we had been bitten on our ankles and the red rash//streaks ran up the length of our legs and were incredibly and almost overwhelmingly painful. I ended up on IV antibiotics and an evening in the ER and he ended up on oral antibiotics. There is no doubt that if we hadn't received treatment, the outcomes would have been much worse for at least one of us.

Glad you and your buddy are O.K. Thank goodness for modern day treatment. Severely lacking during the Civil War.

 

[mdk220]

I was bit in Florida a few years ago and my right leg from my knee to my ankle swelled up to at least twice it's size.
went to a doctor and they used a scalpel to cut open the bite and flush with antibiotics - Dang that hurt!!

 

[Belfoured]

Then there's the Funnel Web Spider in Australia, which can make Black Widows, Tarantulas, etc look harmless. It inhabits Sydney, among other places. That and several of the world's deadliest snakes are among the reasons I'm one of those people who's been to NZ but not to Oz.

 

[Rank and File]

I've always have wondered about the amount of deaths caused by snakes (water moccasin, rattlesnake, copperhead, etc) in the South during the ACW. Anybody have any facts?

 

[Mrs. V]

My Mom is highly allergic to any spider bite. Causes cellulitis..
Also, along the BR trail..my hairdresser was moving boxes of supplies and one bit him..he killed it, and almost immediately he started to swell. Lost a hunk out of his leg too. And that was with prompt attention.

Spiders and I have an understanding. I'll leave them alone if they are outside. If they are inside and I see them, they are toast. Only thing I hate worse is those millipedes that look like an animated eyebrow.

 

[John Hartwell]

I checked my usual period newspaper sources, and found many cases of spider bite mentioned, but only ONE of them involved a soldier -- and HE was bitten while on furlough at home in Massachusetts.

Then there was the October 1864, case of the lady in the D.C. suburb of Uniontown (now Anacostia), who was bitten on the leg "by a large black spider," and the soon-to-be-notorious Dr. Samuel Mudd was called to treat her. Despite his "most aggressive measures," he concluded she "was unlikely to survive the effects of the bite," and events sadly proved him correct.

 

[MarylandLine]

A certain Jim Stafford song comes to mind

 

[TnFed]

An electrician and I actually each got a spider bite, at the same time, in my attic - we never saw the spider(s) nor felt it. We were lifting insulation to find a wire a mouse had chewed through. Both of us ended up at different hospitals about 12 hours later needing emergency treatment. It was summer and very hot and we had been bitten on our ankles and the red rash//streaks ran up the length of our legs and were incredibly and almost overwhelmingly painful. I ended up on IV antibiotics and an evening in the ER and he ended up on oral antibiotics. There is no doubt that if we hadn't received treatment, the outcomes would have been much worse for at least one of us.

Glad you're ok.