FUNGI. 303 



upon this grain for subsistence, were obliged to eat of it. 

 Frightful diseases ensued, the sufferers died in agonies, 

 the limbs of many dropping off from sheer decay before 

 death put an end to their misery. For some time the 

 scourge was referred to supernatural causes ; but at last 

 suspicion fell upon the flour. Its effect was tried upon 

 a dog, and the result proved the direction of the evil. 

 But in the hands of science the fearful power of this 

 plant is turned to good, and a very valuable medicine 

 produced from it. 



There is a mysterious poison used by the gypsies, and 

 avowedly extracted from fungi. It is more than pro- 

 bable that it is an ally of the Ergot. A case of poison- 

 ing by its means occurred some three years ago ; and a 

 strict examination into the poison began, but stopped 

 suddenly ; at any rate the public were favoured with n< > 

 more particulars. I subjoin an extract from one of the 

 daily papers at the time ; it conveys all the information 

 I have been able to gather. George Barrow's works con- 

 firm the fact that such a poison is in use among the 

 gypsies, and that it is of fungus origin ; but they throw 

 no further light upon it. 



" Among other jealously guarded secrets of the gypsy 

 race is the art of preparing what they term the ' drei/ or 

 c dri/ a most deadly and insidious destructive agent, and 

 for which medical science knows no antidote. Analysis 

 detects no noxious properties whatever ; and the most 

 careful examination, microscopical or otherwise, shows it 

 simply to consist of apparently harmless vegetable 

 matter. The 'drei,' then, is merely a brown powder, 

 obtained from a certain species of fungus forming the 



