Unreality bites
Being accomplished in one field often makes people feel that they can pontificate about totally unrelated fields. Kary Mullis' Dancing Naked in the Mind Field is an excellent example of this. Mullis has promoted contrary ideas on a number of subjects, according to him AIDS is not caused by HIV, recreational drugs are good for you, astrology works and visits from extraterrestrials are real, while ozone depletion and global warming are not. Some dismiss Mullis as a kook, but because he is a Nobel Prize winning scientist (for developing a method to replicate DNA) he is accepted as an authority by others. Here I will look at his account of being bitten by brown recluse spider(s), contrasting it with what is known about spider bites, and then consider the possible reasons for the discrepancies.
Description of the bites
Mullis reports that two black spots, first noticed by a friend, appeared on his right elbow. According to the book (page 122) the spots were "tar black" and "looked like scabs, only they were too black and too round." He reports that he checked the Merck Manual and discovered he had had a run in with brown recluse spider(s). Mullis also writes that "the black scab appears about twelve hours after the wound and falls off in another six." But this does not fit the description given in the home edition of the Merck Manual:
The bite of a brown recluse spider may cause little or no immediate pain, but some pain develops in the area around the bite within an hour or so. Pain may be severe and may affect the entire injured area. The area around the bite becomes red and bruised and may itch. The rest of the body may also itch. A blister forms, surrounded by either an irregular bruised area or a more distinct targetlike red zone. The area appears first as a bull's-eye. Then the blister enlarges, fills with blood, and ruptures, forming an open sore (ulcer) that may leave a large craterlike scar. Nausea, vomiting, aches, fatigue, chills, sweats, blood disorders, and kidney failure may develop, but the bite is rarely fatal.
Of course Mullis may have been using a different version of the manual, but I checked several online resources and they all agree on the general description of the bite. The only thing resembling Mullis' description is the appearance of a black blister, but this is in the center of an inflamed area that Mullis does not describe. In addition, Mullis did not report any pain until more than a day after the first bite.
The number of bites
Most people, fortunately, don't receive.even one brown recluse spider bite during their lifetimes. Mullis wrote that he received ten in a two day period, two the first night and eight more the second, which he spent some 600 miles away from the spot where he received his first bites. Even if the same spider had produced several of the bites this would appear to be some sort of world record.
(There are sometimes secondary lesions from spider bites, but I don't know how long these take to developed)
Spider behavior
Ever the contrarian, Mullis disagrees with almost everything known about spider behavior. He claims, for example, that spiders don't bite (page 124): "They call them bites, but they are really excavations. Spiders don't have teeth and they don't bite." and on the next page: "It doesn't bite; it has no teeth. It scrapes with the tools on its front legs." No invertebrates, including mosquitoes and biting flies, have teeth, but they still manage to bite. Spiders inject venom through fangs, Mullis even mentions this fact on page 124. Why he insisted that they make excavations with there legs is not clear.
It is on the reasons for the bites that Mullis is most out in left field. On page 125 he quotes from some internet sites. From the Nebraska Institute of Agriculture: "'spiders attempt to bite humans only as a last resort when threatened, injured or trapped in clothing. They prefer to retreat rather than attack and will generally avoid contact with humans.'" And form the University of Kentucky: "'The brown recluse roams at night seeking its prey. It is shy and will try to run from a threatening situation but will bite if cornered.'" Mullis will have none of it. According to Mullis he was not threatening the spiders, he was sleeping, But if he rolled over onto a spider, it would be threatening to the spider. According to Mullis the spiders bite humans so that they can feed on them. On page 124 he writes that the spiders from the second night "had worked the old wounds from La Jolla--drinking my fluids and shooting in a little more venom to improve the flow rate." Later on the same page, he writes that "Staph [bacterial that can infect brown recluse bites] will turn my skin into mush: spiders need liquid food." On page 125 Mullis expands on his "theory":
It's a mother spider that first gets you and she wants a hole in you that oozes and expands and doesn't ever heal. The females have the most powerful venom, according to the experts from the University of Kentucky, College of Agriculture, Department of Entomology. She wants the hole because her babies need a place to feed. They can dip their ugly little heads into the pool of nutrients that you are exuding and suck your vital fluids through their sucking tubes, and they can live. Nobody's threatening the spider. After making the hole, she moves away and lays her eggs. It's elegant biotechnology from the point of view of the spider.
This is either the greatest discovery in spider behavior in the last century, or complete nonsense. No one has ever observed spiders feeding on humans or other vertebrates. The venom evolved to kill invertebrates and liquefy their insides so that they can be drunk; spiders can't eat solid food. That a few spiders can cause serious bites is purely a secondary effect. And spiders only bite when they fill threatened, it does not make any difference if the threat was intended.
The recovery
Not only was Mullis 600 miles away from where he was first bitten, he was also far away from his personal physician. Rather than visit the local emergency room, he received medical advice by telephone. Although he reports that his numerous bites (except one) were steadily getting worse, the only medicine he used for the first several days was for pain relief. The only treatment was a very unconventional one. Having read that hydrogen peroxide was used, he hooked up a hose to an oxygen tank to one of his bites. This, Mullis reports, stopped this lesion from enlarging. But the reason for using hydrogen peroxide (or alcohol) is to clean the area and prevent infection, not to repair damage. I doubt that pure oxygen would have much effect on a spider bite. His doctor recommended penicillin, but for several days Mullis refused (page128): "Nothing in the medical literature said anything about penicillin for Loxosceles bites." But antibiotics, including penicillin, are standard treatment for brown recluse (Loxosceles reclusae) bites. Mullis was finally convinced to take dicloxacillin, another antibiotic that has been used against spider bites. The result, as reported by Mullis, was a spectacular recovery. After one day of treatment the pain was gone and the wounds were scabbing over. His doctor "had discovered the cure for brown recluse spider wounds." The recovery from spider bites varies, but it typically takes from weeks to months, and often requires surgery. That Mullis was cured overnight by a treatment that was already in use seems as unlikely as his "theory" of spider behavior.
What does it all mean
Mullis' description of his encounter(s) with brown recluse spiders don't match what is known about spider behavior or spider bites. Why would Mullis make up such a story? At the very least, it would lower his credibility on the other subjects he writes about. Several possibilities come to mind, but none of them are entirely satisfactory:
Pulling reader's leg
Is this nothing more than a tall tale, a true story with exaggerated details to amuse (or confuse) the reader? This seems unlikely, there are no obviously humorous bits in the story, and spider bites are hardly a subject to laugh about.
Drug induced
Was his description the result of too many recreational drugs, and the pain killers used after the bites started to hurt? This seems unlikely. Mullis did not report actually seeing this strange behavior, just that he somehow knew that it had happened.
Know more than anyone else
On a number of subjects Mullis seems to think that he knows far more than anyone else. Did winning the Nobel Prize and being bitten by spider(s) make him feel that he could attribute behavior that no one had ever seen?
Hatred of spiders
There are several indications that Mullis hates spiders, understandable given his experiences with them. He describes the spiders as vile creatures with ugly heads who are out to get people. He ends the chapter thusly (page 129)
As for the brown recluse spider, I say kill the bastards any time you see them. They have six eyes [rather than the usual eight] and eight legs. I think that's too many of each. Biodiversity be damned. I'd be glad to step on the last survivor of the Loxosceles genus personally.
This would seem to be a recipe for the destruction of all spiders. They all have eight legs (as do some other creatures) and who is going to get close enough to count the eyes? He leaves out the fact that the spiders are light brown, and have a fiddle shape on there backs. Did Mullis make up stuff just to enlist people in his anti-spider crusade? And if so, why did he include his amazing recovery, which would make the spiders less of a threat?
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Written by Jim Norton
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