This insect is very common in China and some other parts o f the East Indies. The
small specimen (fig. 1. a.) is rare, and is, probably, the male. According to Olivier,
“ the Cantharides o f the ancients, and those o f the Chinese, are not the same as onr.s.
The Chinese employ the M y la b r is Cichorii, and it appears from Dioscorides M a t. M ed .
L ib . 2 . Cap. 65 , that the ancient Cantharides were the same as those now used by the
Ch inese.” “ The most efficacious sort o f Cantharides,” says Dioscorides, “ are o f many
colours, having yellow transverse bands ; the body oblong, big, and fat ; those o f only
one colour are without strength.” The description Dioscorides has given does not agree
with our species o f Cantharides, as they are o f a fine green colour, but is more applicable
to the M y lah rc de la Cichorei, which is very common in the country where Dioscorides
lived. O livie r's Entomologie, ou H is t. N a t. des Insectes. Vol. I . Intro d .
B y the term Cantharides, in an European Pharmacopoeia, we understand the Meloe
vesicatorius* o f Linnæus, an insect whose medicinal properties are very generally
known.t The Cantharides o f the ancients can scarcely be ascertained ; it was a term
indiscriminately applied to several kinds o f insects, and too often without regard to their
physical virtues. P lin y speaks o f the Cantharis as a small beetle that eats and consumes
corn; and o f another that breeds in the tops o f ashes and wild olives, and shines like
gold. The ancients were certainly well acquainted with our common sort, though it is
confounded with others in a general appellation.^ Hippocrates, Galen, P lin y , Matthiolus,
and other physical writers o f antiquity, treat o f the medicinal uses o f Cantharides ; but it
is not clear that they alluded to only one species : indeed Dioscorides also mentions those
o f only one colour as being employed as vesicants. The ancients often confounded the
term Scarabæus with Cantharis ; but whether because they knew that the common kinds
o f Scarabæi produce the same effects as the Cantharis, is uncertain.— The Scarabæus
auratus, and Melolontha, several Coccinelloe, Cimex nigro-lineatus, 8^c. 8^c. have a place
in the M a te r ia M ed ica as Cantharides.
* GeofFroy c a lls this a C an th a ris . T h e Linnsean Can th a ris is a d is tin c t genus. (Te lephorus, L a tr e ille .)
t Applied exte rn a lly to ra ise b listers. I t is a violent poison ta k e n inwardly, e x c ep t in small portions.
I The common so rt h a s b e en called M u s c a H isp á n ica b y some La tin au th o rs , a n d h en c e Sp an ish fly by
Boyle.