dried, pale-coloured rock-moss, which the Vytians suppose to possess a peculiar cooling quality, and prepare with it a liniment for the head. The use of these Lichens in the form of a poultice placed over the renal and lumbar regions to produce diuresis is noticed in the Pharmacopoeia of India, but it appears to be doubtful whether the application of heat and moisture in any other way would not be equally efficacious. A species of Parmelia will be found described in Arabic and Persian works on Materia Medica under the name of Hazáz-elsakhar, or Rock scab; when rubbed between the hands it gives an orange colour, whence the name Henna of the Koreish above mentioned. The Persians call it Gul-i-sang, and consider it to be discutient and a good remedy for scabby affections of the skin; it is thought to be very cooling when applied externally. FUNGI. Polyporus officinalis, Fries. Vern.-Ghárikún. This is the Agarikon of Dioscorides* and the white Agaric of European medicine, imported into Bombay from the Red Sea and Persian Gulf ports. It is commonly kept by native druggists, being an important article in the Materia Medica of the Mahometans, who prescribe it in a great number of disorders, but generally in combination with other drugs on account of its purgative properties. According to their hakims it acts principally by expelling cold and bilious humours. A figure and description of this substance will be found in Guibourt's History of Drugs, 6 Ed., Vol. II., p. 45. The active principle Agaricin has recently been recommended in Europe in doses of toofa grain as an astringent to check night sweating and diarrhoea, to diminish bronchial secretion, and to dry up the milk after weaning. A thin section soaked in glycerine shows under the microscope that the fungus is composed of a branching network of tubular fibres supporting a large quantity of granular and cellular material, amongst which may be seen numerous * Dios. iii., 1, περὶ αγαρικοῦ. The wave principle of Agaric has usually been mod to rest de ers, but a white amorphous biter powder Larion' bas been separated from it, the formula of which according to Wiz # C+E+0*. Martins considers this to be the active prin ciple. Fleary, J. Pharm. Chim. (4) XXI., 272 to 284, gives the flowing result of an examination of the drag:-Five hundred and eighty grams. of the powdered fungus, not previously dried, were exhausted successively with ether, alochol, cold water, boiling water, water acidulated with hydrochloric acid, and water rendered alkaline with potash, and the resulting solutions were examined: 1. The ether extracts a resin, and a body to which the name of Agaric acid is given. The examination of several salts of this acid yielded results so discordant that no definite formuls could be obtained, but the nearest approaches to accuracy lead to the supposition that its formula may be C2 H↔ 07. Efforts made to determine the basicity of the acid were unsuccessful. It is shown that the addition of the elements of water to the resin represents the composition of the agaric acid. After heating with very dilute sulphuric acid, a substance is yielded which reduces the cupro-potassic liquor. The agaric acid amounts to about one-fifth of the weight of the fungus. 2. The alcoholic solution has a very red colour, due apparently to the air, and on evaporation yields a residue of the consistence of hard wax, from which ether dissolves a resinous body soluble in alkaline liquids; its reaction is acid, it is not ystallizable, and it contains 1.5 per cent. of nitrogen. It combines with metallic oxides. The remainder behaves like a resin; it is reddish, nitrogenized, fusible below 100°, forms viscous solutions with alkalies, and gelatinous precipitates with other bases. 3. The cold water yields a red solution, which on concentration deposits calcic and possibly also magnesic oxalate in microscopic crystals, while the solution contains a brown resinous nitrogenous body, considered to be identical with Boudier's viscosin. 4. Boiling water extracts a small quantity of a nitrogenous substance. 5. Water acidulated with hydrochloric acid (2 per cent.) yields a yellowish solution containing lime, iron, magnesia, and oxalic, phosphoric and malic acids. 6. Water containing 2 per cent. of potash yielded a solution which, on treatment with hydrochloric acid, deposited a flocculent substance unacted upon by acetic or phosphoric acids, and containing 3-12 per cent. of nitrogen. The remainder, after this treatment, is a whitish flocculent substance; on drying at 100° it blackens and coheres, yet its microscope appearance does not differ from the original aspect of the fungus. It contains 1.21 per cent. of nitrogen, and affords on calcination 2 per cent. of ash containing lime, iron, magnesia (chiefly), potash, and sulphuric and phosphoric acids. The body possesses all the properties of fungin. The following is the tabulated result of the analysis: 2. Another resin with magnesia sulphate 7.282 2.514 1.900 1.058 6. Nitrogenous substance soluble in potash... 7.776 Fungin 9.686 100.000 Agaricus ostreatus, Jacq. Vern.-Phanas-alombé (Mar.), Vulg. Phanasámba. This is a dark snuff-coloured fungus, which grows upon the stumps of old Jack trees (Phanas). It consists of a short thick stalk which supports a flat woody pileus having a considerable resemblance to an oyster shell, and consisting of a number of laminæ, upon the under surface of which is situated the hymenium. Phanas-alombé is ground to a paste with water and applied to the gums in cases of excessive salivation. It appears to have much the same properties as amadou, and to be a useful styptic. It is also given internally in dysentery and diarrhoea, and applied to the mouths of children suffering from aphtha. The name means "Jack-tree fungus" or "mushroom"; that which grows on the variety of Jack known as Kápe-phanas is preferred. Vernacular.-Chinai-ghás (Bomb.) History, Uses, &c.-This substance, called Yang-tsai by the Chinese, and known in Europe as Mousse de Chine, Agaragar and Japanese Isinglass, is a regular article of commerce in Bombay, where it is valued on account of its supposed strengthening properties. Hanbury (Pharm. Journ. (II.), Vol. I., p. 508,) gives the following account of it :- "Under the incorrect name of Japanese isinglass, there has been lately imported into London from Japan, a quantity of a substance having the form of compressed, irregularly four-sided sticks, apparently composed of shrivelled, semi-transparent, yellowishwhite membrane; they are eleven inches long by from 1 to 14 nches broad, full of cavities, very light (each weighing about 3 drachms), rather flexible but easily broken, and devoid of taste and smell. Treated with cold water, a stick increases greatly in volume, becoming a quadrangular, spongy bar with somewhat concave sides 1 inches wide. Though not soluble in cold water to any important extent, the substance dissolves for the most part when boiled for some time, and the solution, even though dilute, gelatinizes upon cooling. The substance under notice is used by Europeans in China as a substitute for true isinglass, for which many of its properties render it highly efficient. That which is perhaps most distinctive is its power of combining with a very large proportion of water to form a jelly. This property is due to the principle named by M. Payen Gélose, of which the Japanese sea-weed product mainly consists. The jelly formed by boiling this sea-weed product or crude gélose in water, and allowing the solution to cool, requires a high temperature for fusion, differing in this respect from a jelly made of isinglass, which readily fuses and dissolves in warm water. This character occasions a peculiarity in the taste of culinary jellies made of the new material, inasmuch as they do not dissolve in the mouth as ordinary animal jelly. The jelly of gélose is but little prone to undergo change; so little indeed that sometimes under the name of Sea-weed jelly it is imported to this country from Singapore, sweetened, flavoured and ready for use, and in this state it may be kept for years without deterioration." Of late it has been much used for the purpose of Bacteria culture according to Koch's method. Chemical composition.-According to Payen, gelose in a pure state constitutes an immediate peculiar principle, insoluble in alkaline solutions of soda, potash, and ammonia, as well as in water, alcohol, ether, and dilute acids. One of its distinctive characters, which is quite peculiar, is that of dissolving slowly in a very small quantity of concentrated sulphuric or hydrochloric acid, which it colours brown, forming with one or other of them a brown compound, which gradually solidifies, and which resists washing in cold or hot water, and even in caustic alkaline solutions. This new immediate principle cannot be confounded with any other. The ultimate analysis of gelose |
