Scorpion Virus

Abstract

ALLOW me to state that the results of my experiments on Cape scorpions are in full accord with Prof. Bourne's conclusion that the poison of the scorpion has no fatal effect on the same individual or another individual of the same or even of another species. Speaking before the South African Philosophical Society in February 1883, I said:—“Members of the Society will see on the table a scorpion of the larger (Cape) species. That scorpion I caught at 11 o'clock this morning. I at once pierced him in three places with his own sting, on which in each case there was a drop of poison. In the last inoculation I held the sting in the wound, and squeezing the ‘bulb of the sting’ with the pincers forcibly injected poison. The creature is alive and active” (Proceedings for 1883). These and subsequent experiments, however, led me to believe that the poison has some effect, causing sluggishness and torpor for a while. I quite agree with Prof. Bourne that it is physically possible for a scorpion to sting itself in a vulnerable place; and though I never was able to observe the infliction of a wound on itself by any scorpion, I can well believe that this is possible, but, I am convinced, wholly accidental.