A friend of mine in Ohio was bitten by one of these things, in the late seventies. Her brother had unwittingly brought it home from college in his suitcase, just in time for Christmas (which she spent in the hospital, where the doctors spent a great deal of time trying to figure out what the hell could have bitten her like that). It was extremely painful. I don't know where they get this "six to eight week" healing period business. It took about that long just for the swelling to go down in her case. Her wound, on her upper arm, was about five inches across at its worst point, but five years later she still had a nasty-looking scar the size of a silver dollar. It might be down to the size of a quarter by now.
There are worse things out there than cutaneous anthrax. If I had to choose between that and a brown recluse spider bite, I would definitely pick anthrax.
A scorpion sting is also fun. I stepped on one in the yard walking barefoot one night. Wow! Hard to get your shoe on for a few days. But compared to a recluse not bad. By the way the old fifties movie Tarantula is on AMC right now. Look for Clint Eastwood in one of his first bit roles.