There was a red back on the toilet seat when I was there last night....

Submitted by bagelblogger on Wed, 2006-09-20 19:24. ::

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I live in Australia. We have two main things in Australia. Huge areas of land, and distances between cities which surmount the breadth of most countries.

The other thing we have is some of the nastiest wildlife you ever going to wish you never saw. I'm not talking about Lions and Tigers, I'm talking about far worse critters. The type that crawl in through cracks under the door. Slither up pipes.

[Click Mr Bagel to Read more!]

Australia has the ten most deadliest snakes in the world and some of the most poisonous spiders in the world.

The two most feared spiders are the FunnelWeb spider and the Red Back Spider.

I've had the joy of many close encounters with both.

in the 19 50's a bite from the Red back Spider was basically a one way ticket in a lottery. First prize was a small mention in the Classified section of the paper and second prize was a great deal of terrible pain.

Right: Redback Beer Where else but Australia

Red back spiders have been immortalised in song, and in a display of dark humor only an aussie could have, even a beer was named after them, but in the 1950s the iconic red-back spider was one of Australia's most feared pests.

If you would like to listen to an Australian Folk song, which is quite funny then click Here:Red Back Spider on the toilet seatt [3.8 mb]


Song By Slim Newton

A bite, which was not always lethal, would cause immense pain to victims, and the red-back's ability to show up in sheds and outhouses (Slim Newton's Aussie song 'Red-back on the Toilet Seat' has become a folk classic) struck terror in the hearts of Aussies from the bush to the suburbs.

Dr Saul Wiener, Responsible for saving many Australians

But in 1956 the research of a German-born Jewish scientist took the sting out of the red-back for good.

Dr Saul Wiener, now 83, produced the first serum for a red-back spider bite while employed at the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories (CSL).

Fifty years on, his discovery has been commemorated with a silver coin, which was specially produced by the Australian Perth Mint earlier this month.

The coin, which is legal tender in the island nation of Tuvalu, pays tribute to Dr Wiener's anti-venom, which cures about 250 bites a year.

Right:The Perth Mint Redback coin

While initially commissioned by the CSL to produce a vaccine against tuberculosis, Dr Wiener created the red-back serum in his spare time as a "labour of love" by injecting small doses of spider venom into horses.

Dr Wiener's breakthrough sent ripples through the scientific community and the media, but he didn't enjoy the attention he received as a result.
"It became a nuisance," he recalls, "I was constantly on the phone to the press. After a while I began to feel sorry for people who are in the limelight all the time."

A survivor of Kristallnacht, Dr Wiener arrived in Australia with his parents and sister in 1939. Graduating from Melbourne High School, he went on to study medicine at the University of Melbourne and, after a stint at the CSL, became a leading cancer researcher.

He also invented the serum for the stonefish, a venomous creature common in the Great Barrier Reef.

"I felt that I wanted to pay back Australia for giving me refuge," he says.
A foundation president of South Caulfield Hebrew Congregation and a former treasurer of Caulfield Hebrew Congregation, Dr Wiener, a great-grandfather of 11, is still passionate about science and nature.

"I've been studying cicadas in my garden every year since my retirement," he says. "This is my hobby."

As we're told in the Torah 'that one who saves a single life saves a world' then Australia owes this man a great deal indeed.

References:

Parts of this article appear in the AJN:

Doctor who took the sting out of red-back spider bite receives honour

Perth Mint: Red-Back Spider 1oz Silver Proof Coin

Wikipedia: Red Back Spider

The Words and Song: The Red Back on the Toilet Seat

The Red Back Spider is a distant relative of the Black Widow

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