4 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[July 1, 1S71 
CHINESE BLISTERING-FLIES. 
BY F. PORTER SMITH, M.B. LOND., M.R.A.S. 
The entomology of China is not peculiarly rich, when 
we hear in mind its semi-tropical character as a climate. 
The extreme, or considerable, cold of the country proves 
fatal to the crowds of insects which infest the house and 
the field, but of which a mere salvage is saved to renew 
the sorts. In no country, however, is so much wealth 
gathered from the labours of insects as in China. The 
Coccus lacca, which produces the gum-lac ; the Coccus 
pehlah , which secretes the spermaceti-like wax of Chinese 
pharmacy; the Coccus manniparus , which prepares honey- 
sugar ; the silkworm ; the diplolepis gall produced upon 
the oak-tree ; and the nut-galls ( TFu-pci-tszc) produced 
upon the Rhus semialata and Rhus succedanea , are in¬ 
stances, amongst others, of that ingenious turning to 
account of things which is a strong habit of the utilita¬ 
rian Chinese. 
Insects, a large class, called in Chinese classifications, 
Ch’ung , and including frogs, mollusks, etc., are consumed 
by the Chinese as internal remedies. 
Centipedes, scorpions, pediculi, and many other larval 
or imaginal forms of insects, are swallowed in wine as 
antidotal, derivative, and revulsive remedies. An ano¬ 
malous creature, called the Sia-ts'au-tung-ch'ung (“in 
summer a plant, in winter an insect”), is a capital 
sample of a Chinese pet medicine. It is the Sepialus 
moth, with the Cordyccps Sinensis (fungus) growing para- 
sitically upon it. 
Blistering-flies are largely used in China. They are 
employed as diuretics, and to produce criminal abortion, 
so that their sale to ordinary persons is scarcely legal, 
and their use for such a purpose heavily punished by the 
Manchu Code of China. The Mylabris cichorii ( Pan-mau) 
the Telini fly of India, is largely used in the country, as 
in the composition of an eye-powder ( Ye-ming-sha ), com¬ 
monly believed to be the dung of the bat. This insect 
is an excellent substitute for the Cantharis of European 
pharmacy. The Cantharis erythrocephala , a common 
European species, is met with in North China, but the 
Cantharis vesicatoria has not been met with. 
Species of so-called Epicauta are met with in China, 
and are apparently called Tsdu-mau , or Zizyphus bug, 
from their resemblance to the fruit of that genus of so- 
called “dates.” The genus Epicauta , known by their 
running more to legs and horns, is now generally put 
with Lytta and Cantharis. 
Another kind of blistering-fly, new to European 
pharmacy, is the Chu-lri , or Ailanthus bug. It is called, 
literally, the “fowl of the Ailanthus fcctida ,” from the 
noise which it makes in common with other cicadaceous 
insects of the class Somoptera . It is also called Sung - 
liang-tsze , or “red lady-bug,” a curious coincidence with 
the name of a common English insect, the ladybird. Se¬ 
veral species or varieties of this insect are described or 
alluded to in the Eun-ts’au-kang-muh, or Chinese Phar¬ 
macopoeia. The genus called Suechys , from the Chinese 
name for blood, is met with in Java, as well as in North 
and South China and other places. The head, thorax 
and legs are black; the prothorax is red ; the eyes are 
very prominent; a large red bright spot on each side of 
the thorax above; the front pair of wings are dark- 
brown, appearing nearly black when closed on the back 
of the insect; the hind pair of wings are pale with brown 
veins ; and the belly of the creature is of a bright ver¬ 
milion-red colour. Mr. Frederick Smith, of the British 
Museum, informs me that Burmeistcr places this insect, 
which I have called the red cicada on page 237 of my 
work on Chinese materia medica, in the order Cicadina , 
family Stridulantia. This same gentleman also informs mo 
that Olivier (Encycl. Method, v. 756) calls it the Cicada 
sanguinolenta , whilst Amyot and Serville describe it as 
the Suechys sanguinea. This latter name is redundant, 
as both the genus and species mean bloody. It would be 
better to call the Chinese species Suechys vesicatoria. 
One Chinese variety is called the “ash-coloured moth.” 
The chh-ki is met with in Sechuen, Shansi, Honan and 
Hupeh, and frequents the Ailanthus, Rroussonetia (Morns) 
papyrifera and several other trees. They are met with 
in great quantities in autumn, when they make a grind¬ 
ing noise, and are collected by the country people, who 
sell them, fresh, to the druggists at a few pence per 
pound. They are capable of raising a blister, but are 
much less powerful than the Mylabris cichorii , with 
which they are combined in the treatment of hydro¬ 
phobia. The legs and wings are removed, and the bodies 
only used for medicinal purposes. They are recom¬ 
mended in the Run-ts’au, as a remedy in barrenness, 
impotency, menstrual disorders, deficient lochia, lum¬ 
bago, diseases of the eye, etc. The drug is curiously 
directed to be used as a vaginal suppository in female 
disorders. It is combined with olibanum, arsenic, sal 
ammoniac and rice-paste, as an application to struma of 
the neck. Their use in hydrophobia, along w T ith the 
Mylabris , to produce strangury, is in accordance with 
Chinese theory that the bite of mad dog impregnates the 
person, wdio is not safe until the delivery of a foetal dog 
by way of the urinary passages. Hydrophobia is with 
them the climax of the period of gestation, and they 
promote parturition by giving the Suechys and the My¬ 
labris internally; or, rather, they endeavour to induce 
abortion, as the drug is administered in wine at once in 
such quantities as to cause violent strangury. Along 
with the blood and other substances passed by the 
patient they profess to find a little dog. The Chinese 
doctors reason well enough that dog-bitten people die, 
and may be fairly treated after any extreme fashion. 
From this it may be gathered that the people die after 
the remedy ^even more promptly than after the bite alone. 
The drug can, therefore, be scarcely recommended for 
trial in such cases. It is creditable that few remedies 
are highly vaunted in Chinese medical works for a 
malady which is not common in China, where dogs are 
as plentiful and plaguy as in Constantinople. These 
blistering cicadas keep very badly, and, therefore, often 
disappoint the purchaser in China, where drugs are 
badly treated, like tho patients.— Medical Times and 
Gazette. 
DUST AND SMOKE. * 
After a few preliminary experiments illustrative of 
the polarization of light, Professor Tyndall adverted to 
the polarization of light by fine dust, by the sky, and 
by the coarser particles of smoke. In the former the 
direction of maximum polarization, as in the case of the 
sky, is at right angles to the illuminating beam. In 
the latter, according to the observations of Govi, the 
maximum quantity of polarized light was discharged 
obliquely to the beam. Govi’s observation of a neutral 
point in such beam, on one side of which the polariza¬ 
tion was positive and on the other side negative, was 
also referred to. The additional fact was then adduced 
that the position of the neutral point varied with the 
density of the smoke. Beginning, for example, with an 
atmosphere thickened by the dense fumes of incense, 
resin, or gunpowder, and observing the neutral point, 
its direction was first observed to be inclined to the 
beam towards the source of illumination. Opening the 
windows so as to allow the smoke to escape gradually, 
the neutral point moved down the beam, passed the end 
of a normal drawn to the beam from the eye, and gradu¬ 
ally moved forward several feet down the beam. The 
speaker did not halt at these observations, they were in¬ 
troduced as the starting-point of inquiries of a different 
nature, and after their introduction the discourse pro¬ 
ceeded thus:— 
But what, you may ask, is the practical good of these 
curiosities? And if you so ask, my object is in some 
* Lecture delivered at the Royal Institution, Friday 
evening, June 9, 1871. 
