If the spider escapes quickly, step on it!

Abstract

If the spider escapes quickly, step on it! Dear Editor, We read the interesting letter of Starace et al. describing a case of cutaneous loxoscelism. 1 Since this conditionproduced by Loxosceles laetais common in Chile, we believe that some tips would be helpful for your worldwide readers.Loxosceles laeta is not aggressive. Up to 200 specimens were collected from homes in which no residents were ever bitten. 2 It lives at the corners of a room (hence its popular name "corner spider") or behind pictures and furniture, spinning its web in the form of a cottony hammock litter. It is recognizable by a darker violin-shaped mark over its cephalothorax (Fig. 1).Its venom is disproportionately potent for such a little arachnid; it can kill a man in few days, being 100 to 1,000 times more poisonous than the rattlesnake's bite 2 ; it produces endothelial damage, thrombocytopenia, decreased fibrinogen, increased activated partial thromboplastin time, and occlusion of vessels by thrombi. Necrosis comprises all skin layers in 24 hours. Sphingomyelinase D causes hemolysis and skin necrosis, the latter by platelet aggregation induced by the toxin. Severe cases