632 FUNGI. 



Pereira states that tlie drug appears in the modern Greek 

 Pharmacopoeia under the name of ayapiKov t6 X^vkov with the 

 Turkish synonym of ^arpav iiavrapt^ 



Ibn Sina insists upon the great efficacy of agaric ( (^^i j^^) 

 as an alexipharmic. He and other Mahometan physicians 

 closely follow the Greeks in their description of its medicinal 

 properties ; they consider that it removes all kinds of visceral 

 obstructions and expels diseased humors ; the female kind 

 should be used after it has been rubbed through a hair-sieve 

 and all Wack particles removed. The use of agaric in phthisis 

 is of ancient date ; it was revived by De Ilaen, Barbut, and 

 others in the present century, and subsequently decried by 

 Andral {Phil Trans., Yols. 48 and 49). The active principle, 

 agaricin, has recently been recommended in doses of ^^ to ^ of 

 a grain as an astringent to check night-sweating and diarrhoea, 

 to dimiuish bronchial secretion, and to dry up the milk after 

 weaning. 



Description. — Pileus corky- fleshy, ungulate, zoned, 

 smooth. Pores yellowish, Berkeley describes the hymenium 

 as concrete with the substance of the pileus, consisting of sub- 

 rotund spores with their simple dissepiments. The drug is 

 decorticated, dried, and bleached, and occurs in white, friable 

 pieces, from the size of the fist to that of a child's head, which 

 are more or less ungulate or of the shape of half a cone, with a 

 feeble fungous odour and bitter acrid taste. The fungus, 

 when met with in its natural state, has an external yellowish 

 or reddish-grey coat. 



Chemical comjyosition. — White Agaric has been analysed by 

 Bouillon-La-Grange, by Bucholx, by Braconnot, and by Blcy* 

 The constituents, according to Blev, are: resin, 33'1; extrac- 

 tive, 2 ; gum and bitter extractive, 8-3 ; vegetable albumen, 0'7 ; 

 wax, 0-2; fungic acids, 0-13; boletic acid, 0-06; tartaric and 

 phosphoric acids, 1'354; potash, 0-329; lime, 0*16; ammonia 

 and sulphur, traces. 



The active principle of Agaric has usually been said to reside 

 in the resin, but a white amorphous bitter powder (lariciu) has 



