SECT. XXXI.—ON THE BUPRESTIS.
Those who have drunk of the buprestis experience a taste resembling fetid natron, which is followed by violent pain of the stomach and bowels; there is swelling of the abdomen, resembling dropsy, and the skin of the whole body is distended, the urine also being suppressed. They are relieved by the same remedies as are given to those who have taken cantharides; but they derive benefit in particular after evacuations by vomiting and by the bowels, from taking dried figs, and drinking the decoction of them with wine or milk, or a mixture of wine and honey, and they may eat all kinds of pears, and take a woman’s milk. When the violence of the disease has subsided they may eat with advantage Theban palm-nuts boiled in wine.
Commentary. Isidorus says of the buprestis, “animal est in Italiâ parvum, simillimum scarabæo longipedi.” (Orig. xii, 8.) See also Ælian (H. A. vi, 35); Pliny (H. N. xxx. 10.) The symptoms and treatment, as described by the other authorities, are nearly the same as in our author’s description.
Among the remedies recommended by Nicander, the most efficacious are milk and emetics of tepid oil. (Alex. 360.) The Arabians do not treat of this article separately from cantharides, unless it be the stuphe of Alsaharavius. (Pract. xxx, 2, 8.)
We can have no hesitation in holding that the buprestis of the ancients was the lytta vesicatoria, or Spanish fly. See Sprengel (Comment. in Dioscor.) and Schneider (ad Nicand.)