Tarantula (Lycosa tarantula), a species of spider, of a genus to which the name Wolf-spider is often given, a native of the south of Europe. It derives its name from Taranto, where it is very plentiful. It is one of the largest of European spiders, and is a swift hunter. Its bite is much dreaded, and was long supposed to cause a kind of dancing madness or tarantism; but, although this spider does give a venomous bite (as all spiders do), its powers have been grossly exaggerated.
TARANTISM was a leaping or dancing mania, accompanied with gesticulations, contortions, and cries somewhat resembling those of St Vitus's Dance and other epidemic nervous diseases of the middle ages; but the affection differed from these in several respects, and was doubtless some not then recognised nervous malady, the symptoms of which are plainly those of hypochondriac and hysterical affections. Although the sufferers were subjected to extraordinary treatment, such as being buried up to the neck in earth, the success of music was apparently so universal and invariable that a class of tunes is said to have been composed, called Tarantella or Tarentella, to be employed in the cure of the tarantati. The name may, however, have been given to the dance (with pipe and tambourine accompaniment) simply because popular in and near Taranto, and have passed to all musical compositions in the rapid triplet time of the dance. See Hecker, Epidemics of Middle Ages; Madden, Phantasmata; Bergsoe, Die Italienische Tarantel.