Acid. phos.	Causticum	Inoculation nosodes	Sea Creatures	Mercur. sol. H.
Meteorites	Milk	Plants	Snakes	Spiders
Birds	Periodic System

by Sabine Friedrich

Spider remedies, amongst other animal remedy groups, have had quite a career in homoeopathy lately.

In order to understand the homoeopathic aspects of the spider remedies, we would like to first say a few words about spiders in general, similarly to the doctrine of signature in plant remedies.
The number of known spider species is gigantic: With a current number of 39.112 it is approaching 40.000. 110 families with a total of 3.618 genera are listed today and the findings of new families and genera is not unusual. There are about 1.000 species in Germany alone, of which about 20% are in danger of extinction. It seems certain that due to the proceeding destruction of natural habitat many species became extinct even before they were scientifically recorded. This resulted in a big gap in biological science on the one hand, but also in a loss of bioactive substances which may have become useful to mankind eventually.
Not only the spiders' silk has been attracting technology´s interest, but also the spiders' venoms, which offer an enormous reservoir of highly interesting agents. Currently science is investigating the use of psalmtoxins I and II in malaria, coming from the venom of Psalmopoeus cambridgei (Choi et al. 2004). Other venoms that science is investigating are derived from spiders know as Grammostola rosea, Ornithoctonus huwena oder Paraphysa scrofa. Other venoms, such as the ones of the genus loxosceles (brown spiders) and latrodectus (widow spiders) or of other genera being dangerous to humans, can already look back on a long history of scientific research.
But spider venoms do not only play an important role in pharmaceutical research, they are also being used successfully in classical homoeopathy (Mangialavori, 2005). All spiders, despite very few groups such as the European hackled orbweavers, have venom glands, but only few of them are actually dangerous to human beings (Maretic 1987; Mebs 2000).


For larger images please click on the pictures.

print page  

	Acanthoscuria geniculata	Giant white-kneed tarantula
	Aranea diadema	Papal cross spider
	Araneus sclopetarius	Bridge orbweaver
	Araneus umbricatus	Bridge spider
	Araniella cucurbitina	Cucumber green spider
	Avicularia metallica	Metallic pinktoe tarantula
	Brachypelma smithi	Mexican redkneed tarantula
	Brachypelma vagans	Mexican red rump, Mexican black velvet
	Citharischius crawshaiy	King baboon tarantula
	Diaea dorsata	Green crab spider
	Grammostola rosea	Chilean rose tarantula
	Latrodectus mactans	Black widow
	Marpissa muscosa	Jumping spider
	Misumena vatia	Goldenrod crab spider
	Mygale lasiodora	Black cuban spider
	Phalangium opilio	Harvestman
	Pholcus phalangioides	Daddy long-leg
	Pisaura mirabilis	Nursery web spider
	Psalmopoeus pulcher	Panama blonde tarantula
	Pterinochilus murinus	Mombassa starburst tarantula
	Salticus scenicus	Zebra jumping spider
	Tarantula hispanica	Spanish tarantula
	Tegenaria domestica	House spider, family: funnel weavers
	Tetragnatha extensa	Stretchspider
	Theraphose leblondi	Goliath bird eater
	Theridion tepidariorum	American house spider, family: cobweb spider

print page  

	Androctonus australis	Fat tailed scorpion
	Hadogenes paucideus	Olive keeled flat rock scorpion