|You Are Here: Burke Museum : Spider Myths : "Dangerous" : What
bit?| Myth: Doctors can always tell what spider bit you from the
bite alone. Fact: If they could, there wouldn't be hundreds of
cases annually mis-diagnosed as "brown recluse bite" in regions
where the spiders being blamed don't exist. There are so many
possible causes of bite-like sores that even an expert on venoms
and arthropod bites can't always be sure of the cause in a
particular case. One such expert, the late Darwin Vest, has been
a missing person, presumed dead, since June 1999. Medical
students don't even get one full day's training in spider-
related topics. Researchers in Colorado and Michigan have
developed techniques to diagnose bites by biochemical lab work,
but currently few labs offer this service, which only works if
done within a week after the bite occurs. I myself am often
asked to advise people with "mystery bites" but I can't; my
specialty is spiders, not bitten humans. The moral of this is,
if you see a spider bite you (an