28 Rev. W. Houghton's Notices of Fungi 



kind." We shall cease to wonder at the esteem in which 

 this medical commodity was held by the ancients when procured 

 from the promontory of Agarum when we reflect that this was 

 the country of the Agari, a people skilled in medicine and said 

 to have been able to cure wounds with serpent's venom, and 

 that some of them attended Mithridates the Great as phy- 

 sicians. Hence no doubt the value attached to the fungus 

 from such a renowned district. This once famous cure for all 

 diseases has long since fallen into disuse, and Polyporus 

 officinalis will not be found in our modern pharmacopoeias ; 

 whether herbalists still continue to employ it I know not. 



On edible and poisonous fungi Dioscorides writes as 

 follows : — " Fungi (fAii/cyre?) have a twofold difference, for 

 they are either good for food or poisonous (fipaxjLixoi ?} (p0ap- 

 /jlikol) ; their poisonous nature depends on various causes, for 

 either such fungi grow amongst rusty nails or rotten rags, or 

 near serpents' holes, or on trees producing noxious fruits ; such 

 have a thick coating of mucus, and when laid by after being 

 gathered quickly become putrid ; but others, not of this kind, 

 impart a sweet taste to sauces ; however, even these, if par- 

 taken of too freely, are injurious, being indigestible, causing 

 stricture or cholera. As a safeguard all should be eaten with 

 a draught of olive-oil, or soda and lye-ashes with salt and 

 vinegar, and a decoction of savory or marjoram, or they 

 should be followed with a draught composed of bird's dung 

 and vinegar, or with a linctus of much honey ; for even the 

 edible sorts are difficult of digestion and generally pass whole 

 with the excrement" (Mat. Med. iv. 83). 



It need scarcely be observed that the different reasons here 

 given for discriminating edible and poisonous fungi have no 

 basis of fact ; several perfectly wholesome fungi are covered 

 with mucus. Gomphidius glutinosus and Q. viscidus, for 

 instance, are quite wholesome, and, I think, very good eating ; 

 the same might be said of Boletus luteus, B. Jlavus, and many 

 others. Their growing amongst rusty nails and rotten rags 

 would probably not affect their qualities in any way ; while 

 of course the idea that such kinds as grow near a serpent's 

 hole, which, as we have seen, Nicander long before makes 

 mention of, is simply a bit of old Greek folk-lore which is 

 quite in harmony with popular belief and prejudice. With 

 regard to the antidotes in case of poisoning by fungi, vinegar 

 is still employed to neutralize poisonous alkalies ; but perhaps 

 the only safe remedy employed is an emetic. 



Pliny has a good deal to say on fungi, and is the only 

 ancient writer who has given so good an account of the 

 Boletus of the Romans as to enable us to identify almost cer- 



