RHIZOMA FILICIS. 733 



for placing in pill boxes to prevent the mutual adhesion of pills. It is 

 also employed by the pyrotechnist. 



Adulteration — The spores are so peculiar in structure, that they 

 can be distinguished with certainty by the microscope from all other 

 substances. It is only the species of clubmoss that are nearly related 

 to L. clavatiim^ that yield an analogous product, and this may be used 

 with equal advantage. 



The pollen of phtenogamous plants, as of Piiius silvestris, looks at 

 first sight much like lycopodium, but its structure is totally difierent and 

 very easily recognized by the microscope. 



Water, even on boiling, is unable to dissolve anything from lyco- 

 podium ; slight traces of sulphate of calcium are not seldom met with 

 in the filtrate. Yet an undue proportion of gypsum will be detected 

 by the following methods : — . 



Starch and dextrin, which are sometimes fraudulently mixed with 

 the spores, are easily recognized by the well-known teste. Inorganic 

 admixtures, as gypsum or magnesia, may be detected by their sinking 

 in bisulphide of carbon, whereas lycopodium rises to the surface ; 

 or by incineration, a good commercial drug leaving about 4 per cent, 

 of ash. 



FILICES. 



RHIZOMA FILICIS. 



Radix Filicis maris ; Male Fern Ehizmne, Male Fern Root; F. Raxime 

 de Fougere male ; G. Famvmrzel. 



Botanical Origin — Aspidium Filix mas Swartz (Polypodiurti L. 

 Nephr odium Michaux). The male fern is one of the most widely dis- 

 tributed species, usually growing in abundance and, in temperate 

 regions, ascending as high as the arborescent vegetation. It occui-s all 

 over Europe from Sicily to Iceland, in Greenland, throughout Central 

 and Russian Asia to the Himalaya and Japan ; is found throughout 

 China, and again in Java and the Sandwich Islands, as well as in 

 Africa from Algeria to the Cape Colony and Mauritius. In North 

 America it is wanting in the Eastern United States, being principally 

 replaced by the nearly allied Aspidium marginah Sw. and A. Gol- 

 dieanum Hook. ; but it is met with in Canada, California and Mexico, 

 as well as in New Granada, Venezuela, Brazil, and Peru. 



History — The use of the rhizome of ferns as a vermifuge was well 

 known to the ancients," as Theophrastus, Dioscorides and Pliny all 

 giving curious descriptions of the plant. The remedy would appear to 

 have been administered also during the middle ages, for it was again 

 noticed by Valerius Cordus,^ and had a place in German pharmaceutical 

 tariff's of the sixteenth century as well as in Schroder's Dispensatory.* 



1 Especially L. annotinum, L. compla- ^ Lib. 4, cap. 156 of the work quoted in 

 natum and L. inundatum. the Appendix. 



2 Murray, Apparatus medieaminum, v. * Medicin-rhymische Apotheie, iiurnhers, 

 (1790) 453-471. 1656. 20. 



