132 
ON KILLING, AND PRESERVING CANTHARIDES. 
and acetic acid remained behind in combination with the soda, 
lime. — London Phar. Jour. Jan. 1, 1851. — From Buchner's Rep., 
No. xvi., 1851, p. 83. 
MEANS FOR KILLING, AND PRESERVING CANTHARIDES. 
By M. Lutrand. 
Instead of killing these insects by the use of vinegar, which 
necessarily extracts a certain quantity of their active portion, M. 
Lutrand recommends that the flies be introduced into a deleteri- 
ous atmosphere. He employed successively carbonic acid, sulphu- 
rous acid, chlorine, nitrogen, hydrogen, ammonia, empyreumatic 
oils, the volatile oils of the Labiatese, camphor, naphthalin, crea- 
sote, valerian, chloroform, ether, aldehyd, &c. and determined with 
care the mode of action of each of these substances. 
The author was particularly pleased with the effects of chloro- 
form. This agent kills all insects that respire its vapor, with 
a remarkable promptitude, and much difficulty is presented so to 
graduate its effect that they will revive afterwards. 
This being the case he feels himself authorized to say, that if 
the recommendation of a physician of Pont-de-Vaux, (Avril 1849) 
to employ chloroform to asphyxiate bees when collecting the 
honey, be followed, there will be a danger of killing them ; and he 
asks whether in this case the use of carbonic acid gas would not 
be preferable. 
This gas produces but a momentary suspension of animation 
in cantharides. They fall into a sort of sleep or torpor which 
passes off when they are exposed to the air. This revivification 
occurs with equal readiness after the cantharides have remained 
in the gas a long time. 
M. Lutrand also recommends chloroform as a means of pre- 
serving cantharides, and he considers it superior to any substance 
that has hitherto been recommended for this purpose. He con- 
siders it worthy of a place among the appliances used by the 
collector of insects, and the preparer of specimens of natural 
history Journal de Pharmacie, Sept. 1850, from Acad. des. 
Sci. de Montp. 
