Medical role of beetles

 

Many times in the history of mankind, and in a completely independent way, the beetles were used at medical ends. Some of them are, in addition, directly or indirectly responsible for various affections. They are also used in forensic medicine to determine the date of death.

The inhabitants of High-Sudan use as additives, during the childbirth, crushed big flower beetles or Goliaths.

Goliathus cassicus

In the Middle Ages and the XVIIth century, Europe made a great consumption of powder extracts of darkling beetles of internal or external use. Their oil "softens and resolves the piles, hardens the anus when it is slackened, hardens and invigorates fibres of the slackened eyes ".

Blaps gigas

Lastly, the blister flies (family of Meloidae) continued to appear in our pharmacopeia until a very recent date, like vesicatory. These species can in addition cause dermatites due to cantharidin.