Kermes.
Kermes as a pharmaceutical term reaches us through the Arabic, qirmis, red. But it was not a native Arabic word. It was adopted into that language from the Persian, and was of Sanskrit origin. The word Krimija in Sanskrit meant produced by a worm, and was itself from krimi, a worm; worm is the direct English descendant of krimi. Kermes is responsible in modern English for carmine and crimson, but it need hardly be said that it has no connection with the Flemish kermess though it looks so like it. Kermess is kerkmess, or, in English, church-mass.
The kermes of the Arabs was the kokkos of the Greeks, coccus of the Romans. It was found on a species of oak, now called the Quercus ilex, a low, shrubby, evergreen bush with prickly leaves like the holly. The tree, however, bears acorns. The ancients generally regarded these insects as the fruit of the trees, though they were aware that worms came from them. But these they thought were produced from the corruption of the fruit. The principal use they made of them was in dyeing, and for this purpose they were employed until the superior coccus cacti from Mexico superseded the coccus ilicis. In the middle ages kermes was retained as the medicinal name, but for dyeing the insects were called vermiculi, and the cloth dyed by them was known as vermiculata. From this came the French word vermeil, and from that vermilion was derived.
Medicinally the coccus was principally employed by the Greek and Latin physicians as an application to wounds and for inflamed eyes. It acquired a very high reputation among the Arab doctors as a cordial for internal administration, and the famous Confection of Alkermes, invented by Mesué the younger, who was contemporary with Avicenna, continued in popular favour up to the eighteenth century. Meanwhile, the external application of kermes lingered in the use of scarlet cloth in measles, erysipelas, and other red diseases.
The original Confection of Alkermes contained juice of rennet apples, rose water, silk, kermes, sugar, ambergris, amber, yellow santal, lapis lazuli, pearls, musk, and leaf gold. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries this compound was prepared publicly at Montpellier, and was supplied from that city to all Europe. It was described as good for all maladies proceeding from the melancholic humour, faintings, palpitations, heart weakness, and in slow convalescence. It fortified the stomach, rejoiced the heart, and engendered good spirits. The dose was 1 drachm, or it might be applied externally on a piece of scarlet cloth.