acceptable a subject of remark, knows nothing of such a memorable
course of this disease arising from poison, and merely repeats the
observations of his Greek predecessors. Gariopontus, a Salernian
physician of the eleventh century, was the first to describe a
kind of insanity, the remote affinity of which to the tarantula
disease is rendered apparent by a very striking symptom. The
patients in their sudden attacks behaved like maniacs, sprang up,
throwing their arms about with wild movements, and, if perchance a
sword was at hand, they wounded themselves and others, so that it
became necessary carefully to secure them. They imagined that
they heard voices and various kinds of sounds, and if, during this
state of illusion, the tones of a favourite instrument happened to
catch their ear, they commenced a spasmodic dance, or ran with the
utmost energy which they could muster until they were totally
exhausted. These dangerous maniacs, who, it would seem, appeared
in considerable numbers, were looked upon as a legion of devils,
but on the causes of their malady this obscure writer adds nothing
further than that he believes (oddly enough) that it may sometimes
be excited by the bite of a mad dog. He calls the disease
Anteneasmus, by which is meant no doubt the Enthusiasmus of the
Greek physicians. We cite this phenomenon as an important
forerunner of tarantism, under the conviction that we have thus
added to the evidence that the development of this latter must
have been founded on circumstances which existed from the twelfth
to the end of the fourteenth century; for the origin of tarantism
itself is referable, with the utmost probability, to a period
between the middle and the end of this century, and is
consequently contemporaneous with that of the St. Vitus's dance
(1374). The influence of the Roman Catholic religion, connected
as this was, in the middle ages, with the pomp of processions,