cantharidin

cantharidin (plural cantharidins)

1. (organic chemistry) A volatile organic compound secreted by blister beetles.
   • 1885, Alexander Wynter Blyth, Poisons, Their Effects and Detection: A Manual for the Use of Analytical Chemists and Experts, volume I, New York: William Wood and Co., page 430:

     Cantharidin, although readily decomposed by chemical agents, is so permanent in the body that it has been detected in the corpse of a cat eighty-four days after death.

• “cantharidin”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.