56 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



animals having been fatally affected by it ; even 

 flies, that merely settled casually upon the grain, 

 have been killed by that means; and deer, swine, 

 and different kinds of poultry, upon which experi- 

 ments were tried, all died miserable deaths; some in 

 strong convulsions, and others with mortified ulcers. 

 These circumstances must have been truly appalling 

 by their severity and the frequency of their recurrence. 

 Few evils, however, are wholly of an unmixed cha- 

 racter, and this one is not of the number. Ergot of 

 ?-i/e, which was formerly productive of so much mis- 

 ery, has since found admission as a medicine into our 

 pharmacopeias, and is now, in the hands of skilful 

 and honest practitioners, rendered subservient to the 

 interests of society. Horned rye is of very rare oc- 

 currence in Great Britain. 



BARLEY Hordeum is, next to wheat, the most 

 important of all the cereal grains which are now cul- 

 tivated in Great Britain. Its use as bread-corn has 

 very much diminished of late years in this country, 

 while its employment for the production of stimulant 

 liquids, has, on the contrary, materially increased. 



The Egyptians have a tradition, from which they 

 believe that of all the grains barley is that one which 

 was first used for the sustenance of man. Their 

 histories assert that a knowledge of the art of culti- 

 vating this grain was imparted to their ancestors by 

 the goddess Isis, who, having discovered the plant 

 growing wild in the woods, instructed men how to 

 cultivate it, so as at once to increase the quantity 

 and improve the quality of its produce. 



Uninstructed people are generally prone to refer 

 to supernatural agency, the origin of all events for 

 which they are otherwise unable to account. Dr 

 Franklin has related, as coming from the lips of a 

 chief of the Susquehannah Indians, a tradition very 



