Black Widow Serum

Certain vineyardists in western Colorado, parts of Utah and northern California last year were obliged to let their entire crop of grapes rot because pickers were afraid of the black widow spiders which infested the vines. In some regions throughout the Midwest black widows also got into the tomato vines, with the same result.

Last week Professor Fred Edmund D'Amour, University of Denver zoologist and physiologist, sent the cheery message to vineyardists and tomato croppers that he has devised a serum against the black widow's poison. The poison causes spasms, high fever, nausea, vomiting, unconsciousness, occasionally death. Treatment has been to relieve pain by narcotics, to relieve spasms by hot baths, to support strength with whiskey.

In inventing his serum, Professor D'Amour mildly poisoned rats with small doses of black widow venom. Eventually the rats became immune to the venom. Serum from the blood of the rats cured a vineyard worker three hours after a black widow bit him.

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