24 Rev. W. Houghton's Notices of Fungi 



i) \irpov, Tore (pvWov evakbopevov Trpaaiyai 



Kap8api8os, Mfj86v re kci\ epTrplovra alvrjnvv. 



crvv Se Kcii olvrjpfjv <p\oyirj rpvya Tefppuxrdio 



T)e Txarov (TTpovdolo KaToiK<i8os' en 8e ftapeiav 



X el P a KaTCfifiareav epvyoi Xmfiripova Kr/pa. — Alexiph. 521-536. 



" Let not the evil ferment of the earth, which often causes 

 swellings in the belly or strictures in his throat, distress a 

 man ; for when it has grown up under the viper's deep 

 hollow track it gives forth the poison and hard breathing of 

 its mouth ; an evil ferment is that ; men generally call the 

 ferment by the name of fungus (fivKT}*;), but different kinds 

 are distinguished by different names ; but do thou take the 

 many-coated heads of the cabbage, or cut from around the 

 twisting stems of the rue or old copper particles which have 

 long accumulated, or pound clematis into dust with vinegar, 

 then bruise the roots of pyrethrum, adding a sprinkling of 

 vinegar or soda, and the leaf of cress which grows in gardens, 

 with the medic plant and pungent mustard, and burn wine- 

 lees into ashes or the dung of the domestic fowl ; then, 

 putting your right finger in your throat to make you sick, 

 vomit forth the baneful pest." 



The expression " evil ferment of the earth," to denote the 

 general name of fungus represented by the Greek word [iv/cr]?, 

 is, I think, peculiar to Nicander. The scholiast explains it 

 in various ways, which are unsatisfactory ; e. g. u he calls the 

 IxiKrjs a ferment because it is like the ferment of the earth, 

 that is, clay, for it is like a clod of earth ; " or, u it is called 

 a ferment because when undigested the fungus causes fermen- 

 tation in the bowels." Perhaps Nicander was referring to 

 the white mass of mycelium from which the plant grows ; and 

 the term ferment for a fungus is not far amiss. Some of the 

 antidotes he recommends to persons who have been poisoned 

 by fungi will be found in later writers ; as Nicander was 

 greatly esteemed as a physician in his day, his prescriptions 

 naturally remained long in vogue ; the pharmacopoeia of the 

 ancients did not admit of much variation from the old receipts. 

 The recommendation to take vinegar after fungus-poisoning 

 would doubtless be of use in the case of fungi containing 

 poisonous alkalies, and no one can doubt that his proposed 

 emetic, if taken in time, would prove efficacious. 



There is no mention by Greek writers of fungi, as far as I 

 can learn, from the date of Nicamlei to that of Dioscorides, 

 the Cilician physician who probably lived in the second cen- 

 tury of the Christian era ; the word /jlvkt)? occurs neither in 

 the Greek poets, tragic or comic, nor in the historians. 





