
184 THE BRITISH FERNS. 
where it seems to be the prevailing form; and in various parts of 
America (often with the scales very dark rather than golden- 
brown), as in Mexico and Guatemala, in Columbia, Peru, Quito, 
and Brazil. 
The Male Fern has long had, and still retains, a reputation as a 
medicine, its use being as an anthelmintic. Theophrastus and 
Dioscorides, by whom it was called pteris, and Pliny, who calls it 
Filiz-mas, as well as Galen, all appear to have used it as such.* The 
attention of modern praetitioners became directed to it prineipally 
from the circumstance of its being one of the remedies employed 
against tape-worm by Madame Nouffer, who sold the. secret of her 
method of treatment to Louis XVI. for 18,000 francs. The ‘fern 
root' had, however, apparently fallen into disuse, at least in this 
country, probably from the substitution of other sorts for the true 
plant, or in consequence of other more efficient agents, especially oil 
of turpentine, having been found; but from a recent account by 
Dr. Lindsay,t it would appear again to have come into use. Dr. 
Lindsay’s remarks are to this effect :一 
“This [Lastrea Filiv-mas] has been repeatedly used, of late, in 
different wards of our hospital as an anthelmintic in the treatment 
of tape-worm (Tienia solium). It has also been extensively applied 
to the same purpose by the profession in Edinburgh and other 
parts of Scotland. It had fallen into disuse greatly in this neigh- 
bourhood in consequence of supposed inefficiency, but undeservedly 
so, until Professor Christison, in two papers, ‘On the Treatment 
of Tape-worm by the Male Shield Fern,’ published in the Edinburgh 
Monthly Medical Journal (June, 1852 ; July, 1853), showed that 
want of success, in some cases, depended on bad preparations of 
the root, or on old roots, being used. He found it almost uniformly 
successful in the form of an oleo-resinous extract, obtained by per- 
colation of the root with ether. It is recommended in the dose 
of eighteen to twenty-four grains, followed by a purgative. In 
many parts of England nothing is more common as a vermifuge 
than half a drachm to a drachm of the powder of the root made 
* Pereira, Elements of Materia Medica, 577. 
+ Dr. W. Lauder Lindsay, in Phytologist, iv. 1062. 

