Talk:Cantharidin

Date rape drug list

This article really doesn't explain why cantharidin might be used as an aphrodisiac. It just hints at the fact that it causes priapisms, and doesn't explain anywhere why it might have been used as a date rape drug. Unless someone can come up with something about this, I'm going to remove it from the list of date rape drugs. Fuzzform 03:51, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

I would agree with that removal (assume it happened years ago), since cantharidin is not an aphrodisiac. -- Scray (talk) 12:53, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Aphrodisiac

The following statement was in the article with a citation neededtag dated August 2011. I have removed it as it doesn't make much sense.

The extreme toxicity of cantharidin makes any use as an aphrodisiac highly dangerous because it can easily cause death. As a result, it is illegal to sell (or use) cantharidin for this purpose in many countries.

Feel free to re-add if you can find a citation or explanation, but a blister agent is not a likely choice for an aphrodisiac. EdChem (talk) 13:13, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

As the principal irritant in Spanish fly, cantharidin is arguably the most prominent "aphrodisiac" (of course, it doesn't work, but that's never stopped those who claim such things). You may have heard of the Marquis de Sade, who used this so famously. I've restored that language and added a source. We could certainly refine it, but the point is relevant and accurate. -- Scray (talk) 12:51, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for adding a reference. I wasn't sure if the statement was meant to refer to its use as a copulatory gift between beetles and use in humans seemed illogical. I know of de Sade but have not studied him in detail and was unaware of any use of cantharidin. A request for citation had gone unanswered for eighteen months, so I removed the statement. Now that there is a reference, I have no problem with your restoration. The statement you quote appears to me to raise issues about whether the cantharidin is the sought material or an impurity, but I'll read the source before making a change. I agree that the point is relevant if accurate (though I am unsure that it fits the term "aphrodisiac"), and am pleased that it is now sourced. EdChem (talk) 12:59, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Follow-up thought... if there are reliable sources about de Sade's use of cantharidin, perhaps some comment about that should be added as relevant too. EdChem (talk) 13:19, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

I've already added reference to de Sade to the Spanish fly article, and since he did not use purified cantharidin that's probably the right place for it. -- Scray (talk) 21:30, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Makes sense. EdChem (talk) 14:43, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

There needs to be a brief explanation of the aphrodisiac use here, after all, it's cantharidin, not the fly as such, that is the 'aphrodisiac'. Paul B (talk) 15:02, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Opening of discussion: Keep section on Popular culture here, or move it

...to the article on Lytta vesicatoria (Spanish fly). Discuss below?

• I vote moving the section to Spanish fly, because that is where people looking for Spanish fly will go first, and often those users are looking for more popular information. Cheers. Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 00:31, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
• They seem more relevant to the Spanish fly article to me, the uses were of the fly which had cantharidin in it, rather than the compound itself. (PS: I was contacted on my talk page for a comment, likely because I commented in the section above this.) EdChem (talk) 04:32, 28 December 2015 (UTC)
• (in response to invitation on my Talk page) Looking at the Spanish Fly article, which is now more entomological, this is a tough call. The most notable aspect of Spanish Fly, in terms of common use, is the purported aphrodisiac (and resultant toxic) properties of the dried-and-ground insect, historically. Historical uses like this dealt with the (dried) fly, not the purified cantharidin extract. The primary interest in cantharidin is the aprodisiac/toxic compound - so it's a tough call - but I'm inclined to keep it here. Scray (talk) 04:24, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Aphrodisiac (revisited)

@User:Chiswick Chap, I undid your revert to my last edit, and here is why.

I came to this page after reading about the Marquis de Sade, that he had injured a woman by giving her too much "spanish fly". I knew from pop-culture sources that spanish fly was an aphrodisiac, but I had never seen it in real life and I wanted to get to the bottom of what it was exactly. When I searched Wikipedia for the term "spanish fly", I had a very hard time getting an answer to this simple and understandable question. It was as if Wikipedia was going out of its way to avoid associating the term with an aphrodisiac, or discussing the aphrodisiac use.

The term "spanish fly" directs to a page about beetles, where a link at the top of the page directs to Cantharidins, originally without mention of aphrodisiac uses (I modified this). Then, when you clicked on the link to Cantharidins, you were confronted (before my edit) with a page where the aphrodisiac use was nearly disguised. No section headers referred to it, other than a section "Risks of aphrodisiac use", which then directed back to the "spanish fly" page - which in turn directed back to Cantharidins! Moreover in the "History" section of the Cantharidins page, all of the anecdotes given concerned the aphrodisiac use, and yet this use had barely even been mentioned in the article before that.

In your edit description, you wrote: "Sorry but it was better before." Can you explain what it is about the prior state that you found better? I believe I have explained above why your revert made the page worse - it caused the page to revert to a state of greater confusion rather than lessening the confusion. - Or else, if there are specific things in my edit that you object to, I would ask that you make further constructive edits that develop your view rather than making a wholesale revert.

-Wwallacee (talk) 05:28, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

P.S. I have just made a few additional edits as well to improve the clarity of the article - notably in the History section where I moved historical material into the section, reordered the History section in chronological order, improved individual entries, added references etc. I also moved some technical language into a footnote.

Speaking of which, in my initial edit I put the long list of beetle species in the intro into a footnote. This is because I find it disrupts legibility and is only of interest to specialists.-Wwallacee (talk) 05:59, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Human LD50 value wrong citation

I came across the cantharidin article as a scientist working on Cantharidin in the context of cancer. Unfortunately, I could not find the value of 0.5 mg/kg for human LD50 value in the cited work. (Curtis. 1979 May;23(5):663-6.Malpractice--in dermatology R Binder PMID:456036) In this article Cantharadin is only mentioned in the following:" Less Serious Problem Drugs But Difficult To Work With- These include Avlosulfon, vitamin A acid, liquid nitrogen, cantharone, podophyllin, dyes (since the Readers Digest article)." I suggest following sources for lethal dose of Cantharidin: Toxicology of Drugs and Chemicals of William B Deichmann and Horace W Gerarde, 4Rev Ed edition, Academic Pr., June 1972 page 646 ("The oral lethal dose for man has been reported as 30 mg [Arch. Toxikol. 17, 27, (1958)]") Or its source Article: Csiky, P. Intoxikationsfälle durch das Pulver der spanischen Fliege, beziehungsweise durch Cantharidin. Arch. Toxikol. 17, 27–31 (1958). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00577614. The 30 mg lethal dose however was never experimentally validated and is to my knowledge an estimate based on patient reports. In any case this particular citation needs attention and change and the text based on it as well. Curtase (talk) 16:30, 30 November 2022 (UTC)