Wet weather medicine

Date: 27 October 2009 09:57:33

[I have been alerted to the fact that some wibloggers may find photos of 8-legged patients traumatic. So if that is you, please stop reading now.]

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So when it's raining, the presentations in emergency departments change. During a term of rural emergency, I noticed that on sunny days there were tractor/horse-riding injuries and on rainy days there were spikes in shed injuries (ie. power tools).

Now I'm in a suburban emergency department and I've discovered that when it rains we get lots of these cute little critters showing up to triage in an assortment of containers - behold, funnel web spiders!:

This one arrived yesterday and was particularly feisty. It was delivered in a take-away food container and the very brave switchboard man transferred it into the jar while the UK-trained doctor and nurses squealed in horror

This one arrived today. It didn't seem too angry

Apparently the reptile park up the coast collects them and milks them to make antivenom. I'm not entirely sure how this is done - I've seen snakes being milked for venom, and cows milked for milk...

I don't know that it would occur to me to try and catch a deadly spider to take to the hospital. I would be more inclined to smack it with something very heavy...