Botanical Society of Edinburgh. 233 



which had been going on for eighteen months. I immediately gave 

 him a strong decoction of the fungus, which he took in 2-oz. doses, 

 three times a day ; and in eight or ten days he seemed quite cured. 

 Being then permitted to go out, he got drunk, was exposed to night 

 air, <&c, and had a return of his malady. Again, however, the same 

 medicine was employed with the same favourable result, and he 

 joined his ship in the enjoyment of recruited health. These two 

 cases made me very sanguine of the value of the fungus as a cure in 

 diarrhoea and dysentery, but future experience by no means realized 

 the hopes I entertained respecting it. Since then I have so often 

 found it fail completely, that I now regard it as being inferior in 

 efficacy to many of the remedial agents we already possess. Mr. A. 

 H. Balfour has also tried it successfully at Hong Kong, but I think 

 his experience has been similar to my own. It grows on old, dead 

 trees and rotten timber ; hence, and from its shape, the name by 

 which it is designated in China — ■ Mok-yii,' the ear of a tree. The 

 fungus itself is much prized by them as an article of food on account 

 of its mucilaginous properties. They eat it in soups, stews, &c, and 

 consider it a great dainty. In taste it is very insipid, but certainly 

 not more so than the far-famed bird's nest." 



Dr. Douglas Maclagan exhibited specimens of the plant brought 

 from Penang by Mr. W. D. Maclagan. In that country it is called 

 Sweekiang, and is used for food. 



4. "On Poisoning with Indian species of Da tura." By Dr. Her- 

 bert Giraud, Professor of Chemistry and Materia Medica in Grant 

 Medical College, Bombay. Dr. Giraud brought this subject before 

 the Medical and Physical Society of Bombay, and the observations 

 forming the present paper were communicated to the Botanical 

 Society by Dr. Balfour. The very numerous cases of poisoning by 

 Datura that have of late occurred in Bombay, have afforded oppor- 

 tunities for observing the action of a poison, of which but a scanty 

 record is to be found in the standard works on Materia Medica and 

 Toxicology. Several species of the genus Datura are indigenous 

 throughout India; and "Datura alba ,y (D. metel, Roxb. Flora, i. 

 561) and " Datura fastuosa" (Roxb. Flora, i. 561) are found grow- 

 ing in gardens and amongst rubbish, about villages, all over the 

 country. The intoxicating properties of these plants appear to have 

 been known amongst Eastern nations from time immemorial, and they 

 have long been employed in India, China (where D.ferox is used), 

 and the islands of the Eastern Archipelago to facilitate the commis- 

 sion of theft and other crimes ; for which nefarious purposes the 

 Datura Stramonium appears, of late years, to have been in some few 

 instances employed in France and Germany. Here the cases of 

 poisoning by the species of Datura are so frequent, that the natives 

 usually recognise them by their characteristic symptoms. It is re- 

 markable, that although administered under many different circum- 

 stances, and with varied motives, it should so seldom prove fatal 

 here, that not a single case, in which the effects of Datura could be 

 distinctly traced, has terminated fatally ; and of fifty-one cases that 

 were treated in the Bombay Hospital during the past year, only four 



