When a person has been bitten by a phalangion the part itself appears red, and as if pricked by a sharp-pointed instrument, but it does not swell, nor is it very warm, but it is moderately red, cold, and itchy. Those who have been stung experience a great sense of cold, trembling, heaviness of the body, a cold sweat, constant pain, paleness, and a perpetual desire to make water; in some cases there are dysuria, erection of the genital member, humid eyes, and spasmodic distension about the groins and thighs, a violent gnawing pain of the stomach, loss of taste in the tongue, vomiting of water, or of substances resembling webs, and sometimes these substances are discharged by the urine or bowels. By going into hot water they are freed from pain, but the pain returns again with violence. They are relieved by the application of the ashes of figs mixed with salts triturated in wine, or of the pounded root of the wild pomegranate, or of birthwort with barley flour mixed with vinegar. Bathe the ulcers with hot sea-water, or with the decoction of baum, the leaves of which may also be applied. Recourse must also be had frequently to baths, and potions composed of these things, the seed of southernwood, dill, birthwort, wild chick-peas, Ethiopian cumin, pounded cedar-berries, the bark of the plane tree, the seed of the herb trefoil, the fruit of tamarisk; give two drachms of each of these with one hemina of wine, or a decoction of the green parts of cypress, or of its balls mixed with wine. Some say that the river crab when reduced to juice, with milk, and the seed of parsley, and given, removes the mischief. * * * * * COMMENTARY. Nicander describes several species of phalangia, whose bites occasion a variety of symptoms, such as a cold horror, tremblings of the limbs, and in some instances tension of the genital members. On the phalangia, see Aristotle (Hist. Anim. ix, 39); Xenophon (Memorab. i, 3); Pliny (H. N. xix, 9, and xxix, 27); Ælian (H. A. xvii, 11); Solinus (Polyhist. xvii); Phile. (66). The distinction between the phalangia and common spiders is thus stated by Humelbergius: “Araneorum primâ divisione duo genera sunt, unum eorum qui innoxii sunt quos Græci arachnas, Latini araneos dicunt, quorum etiam a Dioscoride duo genera recensentur, unum quod holcon et lycon vocat, alterum vero dicit esse quod candidas, tenues et densas telas operetur. Alterum genus est eorum qui noxii sunt, quos et Græci et Latini phalangia vocant.” (Apud Apuleium.) Similar modes of treatment to that of our author are recommended by Dioscorides (vi, 42); Celsus (v, 27); Nonnus (270); Aëtius (xiii, 16); Actuarius (Meth. Med. vi, 10); Haly Abbas (Theor. viii, 22); and Alsaharavius (Pract. xxx, 2, 26).