206 THE BRITISH FERNS. 
treatment than is usually given to this plant, and very fine specimens 
have been thus produced; but under such treatment more than 
ordinary caution is necessary not to apply too much water. The 
plants may be increased when necessary by division. 
The antiquated medicinal reputation which this fern possessed has 
not been maintained in modern times. A marvellous influence over 
the spleen was at one time attributed to it, and Vitruvius relates that it 
had the effect of destroying that organ in certain Cretan swine which 
fed upon it. Hence, doubtless, the origin of the name Miltwaste, 
which seems to have been first used by Turner, in his Herbal (1551) ; 
* Ï have heard no English name," he writes, “ of this herbe, but it 
maye well be called in English Ceteracke, or Miltwaste, or Finger 
ferne, because it is no longer than a manne's finger, or Scale ferne 
because it is all full of scales on the inner syde.” The opinion of 
its “miltwasting” property continued to be held up to the time of 
Gerard, who writes :—“ There be empirieks or blinde practitioners 
of this age, who teach that with this herbe not only the hardness and 
swelling of the Spleene, but all infirmities of the liver, may be 
effectually and in a very short time removed. * * But this is to 
be reckoned amongst the old wives’ fables, and that also which 
Dioscorides telleth of, touching the gathering of Spleenewort in the 
night, and other most vaine things which are found here and there 
scattered in old books." The plant, though now generally neglected, 
has more recently been considered efficacious as an application to 
wounds and ulcers; and according to Dr. Deakin,* who states that 
it was also used as a diuretic, it is still retained in the list of officinal 
plants in Italy. It has also some economical value, being used as a 
bait for rock-cod fishing on the coast of Wales. 
The species does not vary much except insize; though fronds with 
a divided apex, an uncertain development, are not unfrequent. There 
are one or two other forms which may be recorded, namely: 
1. crenatum (M.). This form has the margins of the lobes dis- 
tinetly crenate-sinuate, and is usually larger than the common 
* Deakin, Florigraphia Britannica, iv. 83. 

