WOMAN'S SPIDER SENSE.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2137, 1 May 1914, Page 5

WOMAN'S SPIDER SENSE.

, . A DOCTOR'S EXPERIENCE. "Acaseofamost reniarkable kind has just come to my notice," wrote a correspondent of tho London "Times'. , recently. "A few weeks, ago, while o.ii a. visit to the country, .1 met a young ins»; who informed mo that his wife possessed a most extraordinary sixth sense in regard to spiders. Slip could detect tho presence ofa spider in any room she. happened to'bo living in, .without having seen the 'insect or, indeed; if onemtfy so put it,, without having any reason to suppose that it was thare. The discovery was accompanied by vio(lent sickness,, malaiso, and. even debility, but all these symptoms at once, passed away when the spider was.caught and removed from the room. "I had heard of such cases, and .recollected having read a story in one of the medical papers some years ago in which a somewhat similar affairs, was described, yet found it hard to believe that actual detection of so small an insect could occur as it were "by instinct." ' However, my doubts wcro set at resb a few nights'laterwhon the lady referred-to joined her husband at tho house where wo were staying. In the middle of tho night my new acquaintance came to my room and asked me to attend his wife, who had'become •very unwell. He added, 'She declares there is a spider in the bedroom, but I cannot find one tin's time. , I followed him and found his wife in a state which suggested sudden collapse. She was very pale, with a feeble pulse and rapid breathins. She declared' that she felt 'dreadfully sick' and that she was absolutely certain that there was a spider somewhere in the room. ■ "So insistent was she on this point that, to humour.her, but without in the, least believing her story, her husband and I lit a cr.ndle- and searched every nook and-cranny of the room. Wo found nothing, and were about to giveup the rather ridiculous pursuit, when the patient suddenly announced that sho 'had ii feeling , that tho spider was upon the mantelpiece. We looked there, and had satisfied ourselves that she was quite mistaken when it occurred to.mo to lift the odge of tho'flounce surrounding the woodwork. As I did so a large black spider ran quickly along the cloth towards a . hole .in the. ■ wood and disappeared. "The husband and I looked at one another, mid I signed to him to afford no indication of what had occurred. But just then a sigh of relief from tho bod, accompanied by the remark, 'At last you have found it,' proved to us tho futility of our precaution. Tho sixth sense jitd not failed. "Within about half an hour tho patient was quite well again, and. on being assured that tho hole in the woodwork was stopped up, fell asleep peacefully."