Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Spider Stone Superstitions

Even the spider was supposed to produce a stone having remedial power, particularly that variety named by the Germans Kreuzspinne ("cross-wanderer").In the old days like some 300 or 400 years ago there was a common belief among the masses who live in Germany, that it was ill-fated to hurt one of these kinds of spiders; indeed, Encelius a great expert on these have told that although he had never seen a "spider-stone," he had never dared to dissect one of the wanderers to seek for the stone. He also remarks that it was in no wise strange this should have such power, since wanderer-webs were used as therapeutics for many diseases. Naturally the "spider-stone" was an antidote against poisons, and a belief was current that in a year when the hassle was raging no Kreuzspinne was to be seen.


An endeavor to induce one of these spiders to secrete or develop its stone or calculus is told by Simon Paulli. On his return from France in thousand six hundred and thirty, he stopped for the summertime with his honorable master, Sennart, at Wittenberg, in order to pursue his works. On a particular day they found some thnig intresting that big spider had wandered into the rain-water holder, and due to its great size imagine it was as big as a muscat nut they thought to make a subject of experiment inorder make a thesis on that.It was then taken with good care and dropped into a glass jar with a some small amount of powdered valerian root, this is a kind pf substance being esteemed to have a much greater effect in the production of the stone. However, the experimenters were doomed to disappointment, for the poor wanderer was unable to live up to its reputation. Tired of looking for nothing, recourse was finally had to the drastic measure of dissection, but no stone of any kind could be found. This evidence made the observers to take a decision that all the talk about wanderers' stones was mere rumours.