The diagnosis: The woman told her doctors that about 20 minutes before her emergency room visit, she and her husband had spotted a large, black spider inside a shed.

The doctors concluded that the woman's symptoms were caused by accidental exposure to black widow venom, enough of which was absorbed through her eye tissue to enter her bloodstream and reach ...

However, in most cases, exposure to the venom isn't deadly. In a 2023 survey evaluating over 23,000 cases of people bitten by black widow spiders, just 1.4% experienced life-threatening symptoms.

Because the woman ground up the whole spider, she may have exposed herself to a dose orders of magnitude higher than is typical. A black widow's venom glands hold about 0.2 milligrams of venom, on ...