158 



1859. 



Larinus 



maculatus. 



'Trtliala. 



TWO INSECT-PRODUCTS FROM PERSIA. 



TEEHALA. 



(Zivei persisclie Insectenproducte von Larinus maculatus and 

 L. mellificus.') 



AT the Evening Meeting of the Pharmaceutical Society, 

 January 5, 1859, Mr. Daniel Hanbury, in presenting to the 

 Society a specimen of Larinus maculatus a.nd its cocoon, begged to 

 offer a few remarks upon the insect, and to explain upon what 

 grounds it deserved a place in a collection of pharmaceutical sub- 

 stances. Mr. H. stated that among the drugs sent from Constanti- 

 nople to the Paris Exhibition of 1855, were certain insect-cocoons, 

 called Trehala, which are used in the East in the form of decoction, 

 on account of their saccharine and amylaceous properties. In an 

 interesting paper lately published, 1 M. Guibourt has pointed out 

 that under the Persian name of Schakar tigal, these cocoons 

 were described by Father Ange, in his Pharmacopoeia Persica, so 

 far back as the year 1681, but that until attention was drawn to 

 them in 1855, they were practically unknown to pharmacologists. 



Mr. H. added that from specimens collected by Mr. Loftus at 

 Kirrind, in Persia, in the year 1851, and now in the British 

 Museum, it had been ascertained that the insect which produces 

 Trehala is Larinus maculatus of Faldermann. This insect, 

 which is a beetle about half an inch in length, belonging to the 

 family Curculionidce, forms its cocoons upon a species of 

 Echinops, probably the E. persicus of Fischer. 



The cocoons are interesting in a chemical point of view, from 

 the fact of their affording a peculiar species of sugar, to which 

 the name Trflialose has been given by M. Bertelot. 2 



1 Comptes Rendus, 21 Juin, 1858, 



2 Ibid,, 28 Juin, 1858, p. 1276. 



p. 1213. 



