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Spanish fly; a vesicant extracted from the beetle, popularly held to have aphrodisiac properties.
1926, Hope Mirrlees, chapter 26, in Lud-in-the-Mist:
I can make the most subtle sauces yield up their secret—whether it be white arsenic, rosalgar, mercury sublimate, or cantharides.
1964, Anthony Burgess, Nothing Like The Sun:
Speaking her name, it was as if he spake pure cantharides. ‘Quick,’ she panted. ‘There is time before they are all about. Again.’
1992, Will Self, Cock and Bull:
It’s lucky that Carol had taken the precaution of obtaining some cantharides; without them the evening might have been a dead loss.
2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage, published 2007, page 612:
Basically Louis's drug dealer and pimp, Richelieu, known for opium recipes to fit all occasions, is also credited with the introduction into France of the cantharides, or Spanish fly.
