DKYOPTEEIS FILrX-MAS. 197 



in the summer months. That which grows on stony declivities 

 towards the North is considered the most efficacious. Of the 

 fresh dug roots we take the inner marrow, and we likewise take 

 the youngest rudimentary leaves which are neither withered 

 nor gangrened, of a bright green colour, a strong sweetish and 

 offensive smell, and similar taste, which afterwards becomes 

 bitterish, acerb, and slightly astringent. Both are stripped of 

 their brown epidermis, after which we prepare according to 

 class 2."— See Phytol. iv. 1098. 



There is no doubt in my mind that all ferns with a large 

 tufted caudex are used for this purpose, both by allopaths and 

 homoeopaths. I have found great difference of opinion among 

 chemists, as to what plant is really the Filix-mas of medicine, 

 some even contending that it is the Ctenopteris vulgaris of this 

 work ; and I have never yet met with a " simpler " who could 

 distinguish between Dryopteris Filix-mas and Polystichum 

 aculeatum: but, from the best informed, I learn that the "male 

 fern " of medicine ought to be the species now under conside- 

 ration. 



Schkuhr says that this fern, together with its roots, is used 

 in dressing leather, and the ashes in bleaching linen and in the 

 manufacture of glass ; there are, however, many earlier notices 

 than Schkuhr's of these different uses, especially as regards 

 glass. Parkinson writes : — "Of the ashes of Feme is made a 

 kinde of thicke or darke coloured greene glasse in sundry pla- 

 ces in France, as in the Dutchy of Maine &c. (and in England 

 also as I have been told by some), out of which they drinke 

 their wine." — Park. The. 1039. In Norway its fronds serve as 

 fodder for oxen, horses, sheep and goats : when dried, it fur- 

 nishes good litter for cattle, and when decayed, is a valuable 

 manure. 



"Formerly," continues Schkuhr, "this fern and its root were 

 applied to many superstitious uses, since divers vagabonds 

 prepared from the latter, together with its young, incurved, 

 and yet unexpanded fronds, the so-called ' lucky hands, 'or ' St. 

 John's hands,' which they sold to ignorant and credulous 

 people, both in town and country, as preservatives against 

 witchcraft and enchantment. This still goes on in our own 

 enlightened time ; and it is a great scandal to Christianity that 

 many men believe more in such things than in anything else. 



