LICHENS. 165 
cup-lichen, so abundant on dry moorlands under 
the shade of the heather, was long a favourite rus- 
tic remedy in this country for coughs. Gerarde, 
the old English herbalist, says: ‘The powder of 
this moss given unto small children, in any liquor 
for certaine daies together, is a most certaine 
remidy against that perilous maladie called the 
chin-cough. Albeit the remidy doth require care, 
and is not to be adventured upon save under the 
guidance of an experienced gude-wife.’ On ac- 
count of the intensely bitter principle contained 
in greater or less degree in all lichens, many 
species used to be employed in intermittent fevers 
and agues, as substitutes for Peruvian bark, which 
was then sold at a price so extravagant, as to be 
utterly beyond the reach of the poorer classes. 
For the same reason, they were often adminis- 
tered in the form of powders and decoctions, as 
tonics to purify the blood and strengthen the 
system. ‘Their astringent qualities—depending, 
I may remark, in a great measure upon the kind 
of tree on which they were produced—were also 
turned to advantage in the cure of hemorrhages, 
fluxes, and ruptures; and Linnezus informs us 
that the Laplanders fill up their snow-shoes with 
one species, and apply it to the feet to relieve the 
excoriations occasioned by long and fatiguing 
journeys. During one period of medical history, 
