16 BULLETIN 824, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
the Chemist and Druggist (16). In the only fatal case the patient, 
a little girl, 2 years old, had eaten about half an ounce of the powder. 
Certain species of Chrysanthemum are used as medicine in various 
countries. Eastes (74) states that G. parthenium is official in the 
French Codex, and is reputed to have tonic, stimulative, sudorific, 
diuretic, antipyretic, emenagogic, and anthelmintic properties. 
According to Henry (127) many chrysanthemums are used as medi- 
cine in China. A case of poisoning with C. indicum is described by 
Hoffmann (135). In the report of Remington (215) on the Centen- 
nial Exhibition, the flowers of Chrysanthemum album and flavum are 
said to be used in China for flatulency, and Pyrethrum parthenium 
is included in a list of drugs from Chile, although its use is not given. 
Stearns (266) lists Chrysanthemum leucanthemum and Pyrethrum 
parthenium as plants whose flowers were used in medicine by the 
natives of Michigan in the fifties. Sato (236) speaks of insect powder 
(made from flowers of C. cinerarisefolium) being used in medicine, 
as well as for insecticidal purposes. 
In regard to the effect of insect powder upon mammals other than 
man, Riley (225) cites a case in which the powder was copiously 
rubbed on a dog, as a result of which the animal became sick, being 
affected in the locomotive organs very much as insects are. Car- 
ruthers (45) states that Pyrethrum inodorum is credited with producing 
lasting injury to the digestive organs of stock by damaging the lining 
of the stomach, and causing death when eaten in large quantities. 
Coquillet (55) reports that horses fed upon the dried stems of the 
Pyrethrum cinerarisefolium plant appeared to relish it very much, 
and were not injured in the least by it. In 1880 Sayre (240) per- 
formed experiments showing the toxic action of insect powder made 
from the flowers of Pyrethrum roseum upon tadpoles. Fujitani (89) 
and Reeb (214) record experiments made upon frogs, fish, dogs, and 
other animals with what they regarded as the active principle of 
Pyrethrum flowers. These tests, however, were made with extracts 
of the flowers and after certain chemical treatment, so that the 
results obtained are not strictly comparable with the action of in- 
sect powder itself. 
ADULTERATION OF INSECT POWDER. 
Insect powder appears to have been extensively adulterated from 
the time it first entered into commerce. The fact that its nature 
remained unknown until 1818, when Sumttoff discovered that it 
was made by pulverizing the flower heads of certain species of 
Pyrethrum, and the fact that the active insecticidal constituent has 
not been definitely determined up to the present, rendered the fixing 
of an exact standard difficult. Sophistication has been correspond- 
ingly easy. 
