FUCUS AMYLACEUS. 749 



county, on the coast of Massachusetts, where a systematic process of 

 preparing it for the market is adopted.^ 



Uses — The mucilaginous decoction and jelly which carrageen 

 affords are popular remedies in pulmonary and other complaints ; but 

 as nutriment such preparations are much over-estimated.- 



Carrageen is sometimes used for feeding cows and calves ; and under 

 the name of Alga marina, for stuffing mattresses. It is largely used for 

 industrial purposes, like other mucilaginous matter. Its mucilage serves 

 for thickening the colours employed in calico-printing, and as size for 

 paper and for cotton goods. In America it is used for fining beer. 



Substitutes — Gigartina marriTnillosa^ J. Agardh (Chondrus mam- 

 rtiillosus Grev.) is collected indiscriminately with Ch. crispus. It is dis- 

 tinguished from the latter chiefly by having the flat portion of the 

 thallus beset with elevated or stalked tubercles, bearing the cystocarps ; 

 but it has the same properties. G. acicularis Lamouroux, a species 

 common on the coasts of France and Spain, and having slender cylin- 

 drical branches, is occasionally collected along with Chondnis crisptis. 

 Dalmon (1874) who has examined it, asserts it to be less soluble in 

 boiling water than true carrageen. Small quantities of other seaweeds 

 are often present through the negligence of the collectors. 



FUCUS AMYLACEUS. 



Alga Zeylanica; Ceylon Moss* Jaffna Moss. 



Botanical Origin — Sphcerococcus^ lichenoides Agardh. (Gracillaria 

 lichenoides Grev., Plocaria Candida Nees), a light purple or greenish 

 sea-weed, belonging to the class Flondece, occurring on the coasts of 

 Ceylon, Burma, and the Malay islands.' 



History — Ceylon moss has long been in use among the inhabitants 

 of the Indian Archipelago and the Chinese. It is probably one of the 

 plants described by Rumphius ® as Alga coralloides. In recent times it 

 was brought to the notice of European physicians by O'Shaughnessy.'^ 



Description — The plant, which as found in commerce is opaque 

 and white, having been deprived of colour by drying in the sun and 

 air, consists of cylindrical ramifying stems or filaments, ^ of an inch 

 in diameter and from 1 to 6 or more inches in length. The main stems 

 bear numerous branches, simple or giving off slender secondary or 

 tertiary ramifications, ending in a short point. "When moistened, the 

 plant increases a little in volume, becomes rather translucent, and 



'^'Ba.tesin Amer. Joum. of Pharm.\%&S. 'The Pharmacopeia of India (1868) 



417; also Pharm. Joum. xi. (1869) and names Sphcerococcus confervoides Ag. {tira- 



viii. (1877) 304. cillaria Grev.), a plant of the Atlantic 



^ A person must eat a pound of stiff jelly Ocean and Mediterranean, not uncommon 



made of the powdered sea-weed before he on the shores of Britain, as furnishing a 



would have swallowed Ao^/a/i o«ncc of dry portion of the drug under notice. Speci- 



solid matter. mens which we have examined are widely 



* Fig. in Luerssen (quoted at p. 734) 126. different in structure from S. lichenoides, 



* For convenience we accept the popular and are apparently devoid of starch, 

 name of ttioss, though it is no longer in ^ Herb. Amboin. vi. lib. xi. c. 56. 

 accordance with the signification of the '^ Indian Joum. of Med. Science, Calcutta, 

 word in modem science (see p. 737, note March, 1834; Bengal DispenscUory, 1841. 



668. 



