COLEOPTERA. " 15 



This insect is very common in China and some other parts of the East Indies. The 

 small specimen (fig. I. a.) is rare, and is, probably, the male. According to Olivier, 

 " the Cantharides of the ancients, and those of the Chinese, are not the same as ours. 

 The Chinese employ the JMylahris Cichorii, and it appears from Dioscorides Mat. Med. 

 Lib. 2. Cap. 65, that the ancient Cantharides were the same as those now used by the 

 Chinese." " The most efficacious sort of Cantharides," says Dioscorides, " are of many 

 colours, having yellow transverse bands ; the body oblong, big, and fat ; those of only 

 one colour are without strength." The description Dioscorides has given does not agree 

 with our species of Cantharides, as they are of a fine green colour, but is more applicable 

 to the Mylabre de la Cichorei, which is very common in the country where Dioscorides 

 lived. Olivier s Eutomologie, ou Hist. Nat. des Iiisectes. Vol. I. Introd. 



By the term Cantharides, in an European Phannacopoiia, we understand the Meloe 

 vesicatorius* of Linnaeus, an insect whose medicinal properties are very generally 

 known.f The Cantharides of the ancients can scarcely be ascertained ; it was a term 

 indiscriminately applied to several kinds of insects, and too often without regard to their 

 physical virtues. Pliny speaks of the Cantharis as a small beetle that eats and consumes 

 corn ; and of another that breeds in the tops of ashes and wild olives, and shines like 

 gold. The ancients were certainly well acquainted with our common sort, though it is 

 confounded with others in a general appellation.;}; Hippocrates, Galen, Pliny, Matthiotus, 

 and other physical writers of antiquity, treat of the medicinal uses of Cantharides ; but it 

 is not clear that they alluded to only one species : indeed Dioscorides also mentions those 

 of only one colour as being employed as vesicants. The ancients often confounded the 

 term Scarabseus with Cantharis ; but whether because they knew that the common kinds 

 of Scarabgei produce the same effects as the Cantharis, is uncertain. — The Scarabceus 

 auratus, and Melolontha, several Coccinellce, Cimex nigro-lineatus, 8^c. 8^c. have a place 

 in the ]\Iateria Medica as Cantharides. 



* GeofFroy calls this a Cantharis. Tlie Linnaean Cantharis is a distinct genus. (Telephorus, Latreille.) 

 t Applied externally to raise blisters. It is a violent poison taken inwardly, except in small portions. 

 I The common sort has been called Musca Hispanica by some Latin authors, and hence Spanish fly by 

 Boyle. 



