[2757] Pereira, Elem. of Mat. Med. ii. (1850) 1007.

[2758] Consult Häser, Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Medicin und der Volkskrankheiten, 1845. i. 256. 830, ii. 94; C. F. Heusinger, Recherches de Pathologie comparée, Cassel, i. (1853) 543-554; Mérat et De Lens, Dict. Mat. Med. iii. 131, vii. 268.

[2759] Tissot of Lausanne, Phil. Trans. lv. (1766) 106.—See also Dodart, Mém. de l’ Acad. R. des Sciences, x., années 1666-1699 (Paris, 1730) 561; Hist. de la Soc. Roy. de Méd., année 1776. 345; and Mém. de Méd. et de Phys. méd. année 1776. 260-311. 417.

[2760] Th. von Heuglin, Reise nach Abessinien etc. Jena, 1868. 180.

[2761] Wiggers and Husemann, Jahresbericht for 1870. 582.

[2762] Ann. des Sciences nat., Bot., xx. (1853) 1-56 and 4 plates.—More recent observations will be found in St. Wilson’s paper, Trans. of the Bot. Society of Edinburgh, xli. (1876) 418-434 with figures; and especially in Luerssen (quoted at p. 735) 156, et seqq.

[2763] Ergot of rye collected by myself in August, placed upon earth in a garden-pot and left in the open air unprotected through the winter, began to develop the Claviceps on the 20th March, and on another occasion on the 20th April, at which date some sowed in February also began to start, Sharp frost appears to retard the vegetation; thus, after the cold winter of 1869-70, Claviceps, even in the greenhouse, did not make its appearance before the 11th May. The earliest instance of fully developed ergots which I ever observed, occurred on the 11th of June; more frequently they are seen only in the beginning of July.—F. A. F.

[2764] Archiv der Pharm. cxliv. (1870) 200.

[2765] The name Ergotine has also been given to a medicinal extract of ergot, prepared after a method devised by Bonjean, a pharmacien of Chambéry, vide Journ. de Pharm. iv. (1843) 107; Pereira, Elem. of Mat. Med. ii. (1850) 1012.

[2766] See Müntz in Comptes Rendus, lxxvi. (1873) 649.

[2767] The red colour of an alcoholic solution may serve for the detection of small quantities of ergot in flour. The reaction with potash, and evolution of the characteristic odour of herring brine may assist in the same object. Extraction of the fatty oil with carbon bisulphide may also be recommended as a test, inasmuch as good cereal grains contain but a very small percentage of fat.

[2768] De l’Ergot de Froment et de ses propriétés méd. (thèse) Montpellier, 1862.

[2769] Etude sur l’Ergot du Diss, Alger et Paris, 1863; Journ. de Pharm. i. (1865) 444.

[2770] Carrageen in Irish signifies moss of the rock. We learn from an Irish scholar that it would be more correctly written carraigeen.

[2771] Plantar. hist. universal. Oxon. iii. tab. 11.

[2772] See Luerssen (quoted at p. 734) i. 124 et seq.

[2773] Alcohol, glycerin or a fatty oil are the liquids most suited for the microscopic examination of this drug.

[2774] Journ. de Pharm. ii. (1865) 159.

[2775] Bates in Amer. Journ. of Pharm. 1868. 417; also Pharm. Journ. xi. (1869) and viii. (1877) 304.

[2776] A person must eat a pound of stiff jelly made of the powdered seaweed before he would have swallowed half an ounce of dry solid matter.

[2777] Fig. in Luerssen (quoted at p. 734) 126.

[2778] For convenience we accept the popular name of moss, though it is no longer in accordance with the signification of the word in modern science (see p. 737, note 2).

[2779] The Pharmacopœia of India (1868) names Sphærococcus confervoides Ag. (Gracillaria Grev.), a plant of the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean, not uncommon on the shores of Britain, as furnishing a portion of the drug under notice. Specimens which we have examined are widely different in structure from S. lichenoides, and are apparently devoid of starch.

[2780] Herb. Amboin. vi. lib. xi c. 56.

[2781] Indian Journ. of Med. Science, Calcutta, March, 1834; Bengal Dispensatory, 1841. 668.

[2782] Comptes Rendus, xlix. (1859) 521; Pharm. Journ. i. (1860) 470. 508.

[2783] Gelose even in the moist state is but little prone to change, and the jelly made by the Chinese as a sweetmeat which consists mainly of it, will keep good for years.

[2784] Consult Martius, Neues Jahrb. f. Pharm. Bd. ix. März 1858; Cooke, Pharm. Journ. i. (1860) 504; Holmes, Pharm. Journ. ix. (1878) 45.

[2785] Library of the Pharm. Soc. of Great Britain, London, among the “Pamphlets. No. 30” (Sept. 1878).