222 



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 1 entertained respecting it. Since then I have so often 

 found it fail completely, that T now regard it as being inferior in effi- 

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

 Balfour, in Hong Kong, has also tried it successfully, 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 the natives 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 Datura. By Dr. Herbert 

 Giraud, Professor of Chemistry and Materia Medica in Grant Medi- 

 cal College, Bombay.' Dr. Giraud had brought this subject before 

 the Medical and Physical Society of Bombay, and the observations 

 forming the present paper were communicated to the Botanical So- 

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

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

 nities 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 (D. metel, Rox. Flora, i. p. 561) 

 and D. fastuosa (Rox. Flora, i. p. 561) are found growing in gardens 

 and amongst rubbish, about villages, all over the country ; although 

 the species most familiar to Europeans, Datura Stramonium, is un- 

 known here. The intoxicating properties of those 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 

 commission of theft and other crimes; for which nefarious purpose 

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

 instances employed in France and Germany. Here the cases of 

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

 usually recognize them by their characteristic symptoms. The 

 motives that prompt the administration of the {)oisou appear to be 



