302 FERN. 



drachms, it has expelled fragments of tape-worm from different 

 individuals. Peschier, of Geneva, appears to have set the ques- 

 tion at rest by his successful employment of the fatty principle 

 of the buds, which he obtains by digestion in sulphuric ether. 

 Tliis preparation has an oily consistence, and is mixed with 

 some extractive substance to form pills, each containing a drop 

 of the fatty matter. Eight of these pills are often sufficient, 

 but in some cases it is necessary to augment the dose to thirty 

 drops divided into small doses : the exhibition of this quantity, 

 however, should occupy several days. M. Peschier asserts 

 that the medicine thus exhibited does not fatigue the patient, 

 while it destroys the worms, which may afterwards be expelled 

 by any mihl purgative *. If this be correct, the gratuitous 

 assertion so often made, that this long-known remedy owes its 

 efficacy as a vermifuge to its feeble astringent and tonic pro- 

 perties, and that cinchona bark would answer just as well, falls 

 to the ground. 



The rhizoma of male Fern is given in substance, powdered, 

 to the amount of one to three drachms, in wine, or milk, or 

 mixed with honey; and in decoction to the extent of half an 

 otuice, Forestus highly extols a decoction of it with dodder, 

 in affections of the spleen, by which he seems to intend a 

 disease of the digestive organs, often occasioned by teniae, and 

 the slimy matter which forms their nidus in the intestines. 

 The expressed mucilaginous juice of the plant has been much 

 lauded as an application to burns. 



' Mageiidie's Formulary, translated by Gregory, p. 191- 



