A medicine of this kind was prepared by Daniel Mathieu, a native of Neuchâtel, born in 1741, who established himself as an apothecary in Berlin. His treatment for the parasite was so successful that it attracted the notice of Frederick the Great, who purchased his nostrum for an annuity of 200 thalers (£30), besides conferring upon him the dignity of Aulic Councillor.[2732]
Great celebrity was also gained for the method of treating tapeworm practised by Madame Nuffler or Nuffer, the widow of a surgeon at Murten (Morat), likewise in Switzerland, who in 1775 obtained for the secret from Louis XIV., after an inquiry by savans of the period, the sum of 18,000 livres. Her method of treatment consisted in the administration of—1. Panada made of bread with a little butter. 2. A clyster of salt water and olive oil. 3. The “spécifique”—simply powdered fern root. 4. A purgative bolus of calomel, gamboge, acammony, and Confectio hyacinthidis,—given in the foregoing order.[2733]
J. Peschier,[2734] a pharmacien of Geneva, recommended as a substitute for the bulky powder of the root, an ethereal extract, an efficient preparation, which though proposed in 1825, was scarcely used in England until about 1851; at present it is the only form in which male fern is employed. Peschier already observed a crystallized deposit in his extract.
Description—The fresh rhizome or caudex is short and massive, 2-3 inches in diameter, decumbent, or rising a few inches above the ground, and bearing on its summit a circular tuft of fronds, which in their lower part are thickly beset with brown chaffy scales. Below the growing fronds are the remains of those of previous seasons, which retain in their firm, fleshy bases, vitality and succulence for years after their upper portion has perished. From among these fleshy bases, spring the black, wiry, branching roots.[2735] The rhizome is rather fleshy, and easily cut with a knife, internally of a bright pale yellowish green; it has very little odour and a sweetish astringent taste. For pharmaceutical use, it should be collected in the late autumn, winter or early spring, divested of the dead portions, split open, dried with a gentle heat, reduced to coarse powder, and at once exhausted with ether. Extract obtained in this way is more efficient than that which has been got from rhizome that has been kept some time.
Microscopic Structure—On transverse section of the rootstock, the tissue shows rounded, somewhat polyhedral cells with porous walls; the outer cells are brown and rather smaller, but do not exhibit the regular flattened shape, usual in many suberous coats. Within this cortical layer, there is a circle of about 10 large vascular bundles, besides a large number of smaller ones scattered beyond the circle. The leaf-bases exhibit a somewhat different structure, their vascular bundles, usually 8, forming but one diffuse circle.
The cells of the parenchyme contain starch, greenish or brownish granules of tannic matter, and drops of oil. In the green, vigorously vegetating parts of the rootstock there are numerous smaller and larger intercellular spaces, into which a few stalked glands project, as shown by Prof. Schacht of Bonn in 1863. These globular glands originate from the cells bordering the intercellular spaces. After their complete development, and the appearance of starch in the adjacent parenchyme, they exude a greenish fluid, which when thin slices of the rhizome are kept some time in glycerin, solidifies in acicular crystals.[2736] Such glands appear to be wanting in most of the allied ferns, such as Aspidium Oreopteris Sw. and Asplenium Filix fœmina Bernh. They have been observed by one of us (F.), in the small rhizome of A. spinulosum Sw. Similar glands, but not exuding a green liquid, occur between the paleæ below the vegetating cone of the rootstock.
Chemical Composition—Of the numerous examinations which have been made of this drug, those of Bock (1852), of Luck (1860), and of Kruse (1876), may be especially mentioned. Besides the universally distributed constituents of plants, there have been found in the rhizome 5 to 6 per cent. of a green fatty oil, traces of volatile oil, resin, tannin (Luck’s Tannaspidic and Pteritannic Acids) and crystallizable sugar, which according to Bock is probably cane sugar.
The medicinal ethereal extract, of which the rhizome yields about 8 per cent., deposits a colourless, granular, crystalline substance, noticed by Peschier as early as 1826, and subsequently designated by Luck, Filicic Acid. Grabowski (1867) assigned it the formula C₁₄H₁₈O₅. We learn from Prof. Buchheim that he regards filicic acid as the source of the medicinal efficacy of the drug. By fusion with potash, filicic acid is converted into phloroglucin and butyric acid. The green liquid portion of the extract consists mainly of a glyceride called Filixolin, from which Luck obtained by saponification two acids, the one volatile, Filosmylic Acid, the other non-volatile, termed Filixolic Acid.
Malin (1867) showed that the tannic acid of male fern may be decomposed by boiling dilute acids into sugar and a red substance, Filix-red, C₂₆H₁₈O₁₂, analogous to Cinchona-red.
Schoonbroodt[2737] performed some interesting experiments with fresh fern root, showing that it contains volatile acids of the fatty series, among which is probably formic; but also a fixed acid, accompanied by an oil of disagreeable odour. The liquid distilled from the dried root did not evolve a similar odour, nor did it contain any acid body. A small quantity of essential oil was obtained by means of ether from the alcoholic extract of the fresh but not of the dried rootstock. The rhizome of male fern yields 2 to 3 per cent. of ash, consisting mainly of phosphates, carbonates, and sulphates of calcium and potassium, together with silica.