220 INSECTS AND MAN 



medicine and the arts from very early times. Some species 

 furnish very valuable dyes. One species, Kermes ilicis, 

 infecting the oak, Quercus ilex, a native of the Levant and 

 Southern Europe, when acted upon by mordants of tin and 

 other salts, furnishes a beautiful blood-red dye, which was 

 known to the Phoenicians as Tola or Thola, and to the 

 Hebrews as Zehori. The Arabs received it from Armenia 

 and Persia as Kermes or Alkermes, and the Greeks knew 

 it as Coccus. At a later date this dye was supplanted by 

 another, also prepared from a scale insect, Dactylopius 

 coccus, found on the prickly pear, Opuntia coccinellifera. 

 Cochineal, as the dye is called, once formed a staple article 

 of commerce in South America, Mexico, and the Canary 

 Islands. The dried cochineal insect, resembling a shrivelled 

 silver-grey hemp seed, furnishes the colours known as 

 carmine and lake. But, just as cochineal superseded the 

 earlier pigments, so has it given way to aniline dyes, only 

 being used at the present day to colour foodstuffs and as 

 a dye for soldiers' uniforms, because it stands the weather 

 better than chemical dyes; and the cultivation of Dactylopius 

 coccus, once a flourishing industry, is now in a moribund 

 condition. It is, however, with the medical aspect of the 

 insects that we are concerned here. Both species of coccid 

 have been utilised for various ailments: cochineal is used 

 medicinally by the allopathic and homoeopathic fraternity ; 

 in the United States Dispensatory it is recommended for 

 whooping cough and neuralgic affections on account of 

 its anodyne properties. According to Dr J. M. Honigberger 

 the Hakims of India consider cochineal as destructive to 

 the generative faculty. 



Chinese pela wax, an important article of commerce, 

 known as Schih-Kene-Ming, is the secretion of JEricerus 

 pela. This scale insect is partial to an ash tree, Fraxinus 

 chinensis, and it coats large surfaces of the branches with 

 wax, which is collected for medicinal and other uses. 



Bed bugs are well known, by reputation at any rate, in 



