Uses—Lycopodium is not now regarded as possessing any medicinal virtues, and is only used externally for dusting excoriated surfaces and for placing in pill boxes to prevent the mutual adhesion of pills. It is also employed by the pyrotechnist.
Adulteration—The spores are so peculiar in structure, that they can be distinguished with certainty by the microscope from all other substances. It is only the species of clubmoss that are nearly related to L. clavatum,[2727] that yield an analogous product, and this may be used with equal advantage.
The pollen of phænogamous plants, as of Pinus silvestris, looks at first sight much like lycopodium, but its structure is totally different and very easily recognized by the microscope.
Water, even on boiling, is unable to dissolve anything from lycopodium; slight traces of sulphate of calcium are not seldom met with in the filtrate. Yet an undue proportion of gypsum will be detected by the following methods:—
Starch and dextrin, which are sometimes fraudulently mixed with the spores, are easily recognized by the well-known tests. Inorganic admixtures, as gypsum or magnesia, may be detected by their sinking in bisulphide of carbon, whereas lycopodium rises to the surface; or by incineration, a good commercial drug leaving about 4 per cent. of ash.
FILICES.
RHIZOMA FILICIS.
Radix Filicis maris; Male Fern Rhizome, Male Fern Root; F. Racine de Fougère mâle; G. Farnwurzel.
Botanical Origin—Aspidium Filix mas Swartz (Polypodium L. Nephrodium Michaux). The male fern is one of the most widely distributed species, usually growing in abundance and, in temperate regions, ascending as high as the arborescent vegetation. It occurs all over Europe from Sicily to Iceland, in Greenland, throughout Central and Russian Asia to the Himalaya and Japan; is found throughout China, and again in Java and the Sandwich Islands, as well as in Africa from Algeria to the Cape Colony and Mauritius. In North America it is wanting in the Eastern United States, being principally replaced by the nearly allied Aspidium marginale Sw. and A. Goldieanum Hook.; but it is met with in Canada, California and Mexico, as well as in New Granada, Venezuela, Brazil, and Peru.
History—The use of the rhizome of ferns as a vermifuge was well known to the ancients,[2728] as Theophrastus, Dioscorides and Pliny all giving curious descriptions of the plant. The remedy would appear to have been administered also during the middle ages, for it was again noticed by Valerius Cordus,[2729] and had a place in German pharmaceutical tariffs of the sixteenth century as well as in Schröder’s Dispensatory.[2730] Yet Tragus[2731] remarks that, at least in Germany, the root was little used. It was in fact subsequently nearly forgotten until revived by the introduction of certain secret remedies for tapeworm, of which powdered male fern rhizome, combined with drastic purgatives, was a chief constituent.