or COCHINEEL, a drug used by dyers and others, for producing red colours, especially crimson and scarlets, and for making carmine; and likewise in medicine as a cardiac, cordial, sudorific, alexipharmic, and refrigerant.

The cochineal, in the state in which it is brought to us, is in small bodies of an irregular figure, usually convex, ridged and furrowed on one side, and concave on the other. The colour of the best is a purplish gray, powdered over with a sort of white dust. All that the world knew of it for a long time was, that it was gathered from certain plants in Mexico; and therefore it was naturally supposed to be a seed, till in the year 1692 Father Plumer gave Pomet an account of its being an animal; and this, though then disregarded, has been confirmed by subsequent observations.