27 
ABSTRACTS AND GLEANINGS FROM BRITISH AND FOREIGN 
JOURNALS IN BOTANY, MATERIA MEDICA, AND THERA¬ 
PEUTICS. 
“ Mata” 
BY E. S. WAYNE. 
The herb, called “ mata ” by the Mexicans, is in common'use in New Mexico, 
as an addition to tobacco in smoking. A small quantity of it is rubbed to a 
coarse powder in the palm of the hand, and then mixed with the tobacco, to 
which, in burning, it imparts a very agreeable odour, and at the same time pre¬ 
vents or corrects the disagreeable odour of stale tobacco-smoke upon the clothing, 
and in apartments. 
It was introduced into use here by Major M‘Crea, U.S.A., and since has 
become quite in demand by smokers (those who use the pipe). I have had 
much difficulty in obtaining any quantity of the article, and then only at an 
enormous cost. I was fortunate enough this season to obtain a quantity of the 
seed of the plant, and have been successful in growing a crop, specimens of 
which are herewith sent, also some of the seed. The plant is rather insignificant 
in size; the inflorescence is very minute, white, corolla entire, and finely cleft. 
I have not been able to make out its Natural Order, or to find a description of 
it in any work at my disposal. It is not described in the Pacific Railroad 
Survey (in the botanical section of that Government Report). The odour, when 
burnt in a pipe, is similar to that of the tonquin bean, and I presume it owes 
the same to the presence of coumarin in the plant.— Proc. Amer. Pharm. Assoc., 
1867, in Amer. Journal of Pharmacy. 
The following note is appended by Professor Maisch:—At the request of Pro¬ 
fessor Wayne I have examined the specimens sent. The seeds consisted of the 
empty involucres and the acliene (with the pappus much broken) of a Eupa- 
torium. The dried plant was without flowers, but bears a striking resemblance 
to some of our Northern species of this genus, and corresponds closely with the 
description of Eupatorium incarnatum, Walter. This species is indigenous to 
Texas, but is found as far east as Florida and Georgia. 
Fungi in Disease. 
At a recent meeting of the Pathological Society, the President announced 
that he had received from Professor ITallier, of Jena, the observer who last year 
published the statement that he had traced a constant connection between 
cholera and the existence of a certain fungus in the intestinal canal, a letter, in 
which he communicated the fact that he had established, as he believed, a con¬ 
nection between six diseases and different species of fungi. These are, variola 
and the allied diseases, variola ovina and vaccinia ; measles, typhus, and typhoid 
fevers. In the three latter the fungi were discovered in the blood. In the three 
former Mr. Simon presumed that the fungi were found in the vesicles or pus¬ 
tules. This fact was stated to have been verified by the examination of speci¬ 
mens taken from different sources and in different epidemics. If confirmed, it 
is difficult to overrate the interest and value which attach to it.— Med. Times 
mid Gazette. 
Production of Disease by Fungi. 
Dr. J. H. Salisbury, who, it will be remembered, a year or two ago announced 
that he had discovered a connection between certain palmelloid cryptogamic 
bodies, which he named “ague plants,” and intermittent fever, now publishes, 
in the January number of the ‘ American Journal of the Medical Sciences,’ that 
he has observed two new algoid vegetations, one of which he believes to be the 
cause of syphilis, and the other of gonorrhoea. The Crypta syphilitica he 
describes as a minute, transparent, highly refractive algoid filament of uniform 
