Chapter LXXXV: Section III: Of the Treatment of Poisoning with Cantharides

The treatment of poisoning with cantharides is not well established. No antidote has yet been discovered. At one time fixed oil was believed to be an excellent remedy. But the experiments of Robiquet on the active principle of the poison, and those of Orfila on the effects of its oleaginous solution, rather prove that oil is the reverse of an antidote. The case mentioned in the Genoa Memoirs was evidently exacerbated by the use of oil. When the accident is discovered early enough, and vomiting has not already begun, emetics may be given; and if vomiting has begun, it is to be encouraged. Oleaginous and demulcent injections into the bladder generally relieve the strangury. The warm bath is a useful auxiliary. Leeches and blood-letting are required, according as the degree and stage of the inflammation may seem to indicate.

Many other insects besides the _Cantharis vesicatoria_ possess similar acrid properties. Two of them, however, may be briefly alluded to, because they have caused fatal poisoning. The one is the _Meloë proscarabæus_, the _Maiwurm_ of the Germans, a native of most European countries. In Rust’s Magazin there is an account of four persons who took the powder of this insect from a quack for spasms in the stomach. The principal symptoms were stifling and vomiting; and two of the people died within twenty-four hours.[1507] The other is the _Bombyx_, of which at least two species are believed to possess powerful irritant properties, the _B. pityocarpa_ and _B. processionea_. The following is an instance of their effects. A child ten years old had a common blister applied to the neck and spine as a remedy for deafness; and four days afterwards her mother dressed the abraded skin with the leaves of beet-root, from which she had previously shaken a great number of caterpillars. The child soon complained of insupportable itching and burning in the part, and endeavoured to tear off the dressings. The mother persevered, however; and her child died in two days of gangrene of the whole integuments of the back. The surgeon who saw the child on the last day of her life, ascribed the gangrene to the insects mentioned above, and states that they possess the power of exciting erysipelas when applied even to the sound skin.[1508] It is probable that many other insects in Europe have similar properties. The _Mylabris cichorii_, which is partially used in Italy,[1509] and is in common use in India and China for blistering, possesses active irritant properties. The _Cantharis ruficollis_, another species used in the Nizam’s Territories in India, is also energetic. Other species known to possess activity are _Mylabris fusselini_, _Meloe majalis_, _M. trianthemum_, _Coccinella bipunctata_, _C. septem-punctata_, and _Cantharis vittata_.