M A G A Z •: - Desert Magazine of the Southwest

Dr. Herbert Stahnke in his study where more than 6,000 live scorpions have been identified.
found a number of the vicious looking things around their
home premises.
When she sought information about the seriousness of scorpion
stings, the answers were conflicting. Some said they were
no more serious than bee stings, others that a small child stung
by a scorpion invariably died.
Inquiry among physicians revealed that little was known
either about scorpions or the effects of their poison. It was
stated, however that several deaths attributable to scorpion
stings had occurred in Mesa and vicinity in recent years. Mr.
Stahnke's fear for the welfare of his small daughter was aroused
and he sought Arizona medical records.
He found that during a nine-year period 50 deaths had resulted
from the bites or stings of poisonous creatures. Of these
50 deaths, 34 were from scorpion stings, eight from rattlesnake
bites, three from black-widow spiders, one from Gila
monster, and four classed as miscellaneous.
During the summer of 1935, Stahnke attended summer
school at Iowa state college in Ames. One noon he picked up a
copy of his hometown newspaper, the Mesa Journal-Tribune,
and was horrified to read of the tragic death of little Bobby
Collingwood, four and one-half years old, from the sting of a
scorpion. Visualizing his own child as a possible victim, he
resolved that upon his return to Mesa in the fall he would immediately
start vigorous action to solve his state's problem of
scorpionism.
So perturbed was he over the situation that he wrote to the
publisher of the Mesa Journal-Tribune, stated his plan to find
a means of removing this menace to desert children, and asked
the newspaper to cooperate by securing live scorpions from the
vicinity of Mesa so that he would have material upon which
to start work immediately upon his return.
Realizing the importance of Stahnke's self-imposed project,
the editor of the Journal-Tribune published a request that live
scorpions, properly caged in jars, be brought to the office of
the newspaper. No sooner had the matter been made public
than the manager of the Rendezvous swimming pool of Mesa
offered, as an incentive, a free swim to each boy or girl who
checked in a live scorpion at the newspaper office. So effective
was the scorpion gathering campaign that when Stahnke returned
to Mesa early in September, more than 600 live scorpions
were waiting for him at the Journal-Tribune office.
Stahnke's first step was to look up all of the available literature
on scorpions. He found that very little work regarding the
venom of scorpions of the United States had ever been done.
It appeared that if little Jo Anne Stahnke were to be made safe
from scorpion poisoning her dad was going to have to start
from scratch, and that is just what Herb Stahnke did.
In spare time the science teacher began an exhaustive study
of the 600 live specimens which the people of Mesa had collected
for him. He wanted to identify them. He obtained from
the American Museum of Natural History in New York City
its collection of Arizona scorpions so that he might compare
them with his. Gradually as he became acquainted with the
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