232 INSECT MEDICINES — CANTHARIDES. 



country calomel and ghee (butter), it is extensively used as a dressing 

 for slight wounds or putrid sores, either in man or beast. Capt. W. ~F. W. 

 Owen, R.N., in his "Narrative of Voyages" on the Eastern coast of 

 Africa, relates that a kind of paste made from the cockroach (Blatta 

 orientalis), administered internally, was found one of the most powerful 

 anti-spasmodics known, and particularly useful when diluted with water 

 in the case of lock-jaw (vol. 2, p. 238). Blaps sulcata is eaten by the 

 Turkish women cooked with butter, in order to make themselves fat. 

 It is also believed to act as an antidote against the ear-ache and the 

 sting of the scorpion. The food uses of insects we shall not touch in 

 this article. The only important medicinal insect of the present day 

 is the vesicatory beetle, of which several species are employed exter- 

 nally for blistering purposes, and occasionally internal, although highly 

 dangerous. The Cantharis vesicatoria -belongs to the class Coleoptera or 

 beetle tribe, and is obtained largely from Spain (whence its popular 

 name of Spanish fly) and the southern parts of Europe. They are mostly 

 found upon the ash-trees, the leaves of which are their favourite food. 

 The poplar and the rose are also frequented by them. When touched, all 

 the cantharides have the peculiarity of feigning death, so that they are 

 called by children " pretenders." A great variety of species possess the 

 blistering property, and we receive commercially supplies from the Medi- 

 terranean ports, from Germany, the South of France, and from China. 

 These insects are so light that fifty of them will scarcely weigh a drachm, 

 and yet in some years twelve tons of them have been shipped from the 

 island of Sicily alone. The average exports thence in the three years end- 

 ing 1857 were 185 cwts. annually. Swarms of cantharides, like bees, 

 sometimes darken the air. Their disagreeable smell may be perceived even 

 before they are seen, and this serves as a guide to those who catch them. 

 They are collected in Sicily, mostly in the southern part of the island. The 

 quantity produced each year is very uncertain. Some years they are 

 found in abundance, and in others scarcely any are to be collected. 



Cantharides are collected in May, June, and July, in consequence of 

 their wings being then wet with dew : the tree is shaken, and the dead- 

 like insects are carefully gathered up, killed by the fumes of vinegar, and 

 dried in the sun. But this is not the only insect that possesses the active 

 principle cantharidin : there is the genus Mylabris, which consists of fifty- 

 one species, of which twenty-eight are found in Africa. There is a large 

 occasional importation of cantharides from Russia. The Russian insects 

 are larger than those of other countries. Cantharidin is obtained from an 

 alcoholic tincture of the powdered insect, and possesses in an intense 

 degree the blistering properties of the powdered cantharides. The amount 

 of cantharidin in 500 parts of each of the undermentioned insects is as 

 follows : — 



Cantharis vesicatoria 2'03 



Cantharis vittata 1*99 



Mylabris cichorii 2"13 



