Sets a’ the Cam’slang folk wrang in the head.’
The weed is the weedy fungi.”—(“Folk-Medicine,” Black, London, 1883, p. 104.)
Camden says that the Irish “delight in herbs, ... especially cresses, mushrooms, and roots.”—(“Britannia,” edition of London, 1753, vol. ii. p. 1422.)
Other references to the Siberian fungus are inserted to afford students the fullest possible opportunity to understand all that was available to the author himself on this point.
“Agaricus muscarius is one of the most injurious, yet it is used as a means of intoxication by the Kamtchadales. One or two of them are sufficient to produce a slight intoxication, which is peculiar in its character. It stimulates the muscular powers and greatly excites the nervous system, leading the partakers into the most ridiculous extravagances.”—(American Cyclopædia, New York, 1881, article “Fungi.”)
Agaricus muscarius. “This is the ‘mouche-more’ of the Russians, Kamtchadales, and Koriars, who use it for intoxication. They sometimes eat it dry, and sometimes immerse it in a liquor made with the epilobium, and when they drink this liquor they are seized with convulsions in all their limbs, followed by that kind of raving which attends a burning fever. They personify this mushroom, and if they are urged by its effects to suicide or any dreadful crime, they pretend to obey its commands. To fit themselves for premeditated assassination they recur to the use of the ‘mouche-more.’ A powder of the root, or of that part of the stem which is covered by the earth, is recommended in epileptic cases, and externally applied for dissipating hard, globular swellings and for healing ulcers.”—(Cyclopædia, Philadelphia, no date, Samuel Bradford, vol. i. article “Agaric.”)
“One of the most poisonous species of the genus is the ‘fly agaric,’ so named because the fungus is often steeped and the solution used for the destruction of the house-fly.... It is as attractive and as poisonous as it is beautiful. In Kamtchatka, it is highly prized for its poisonous properties, producing, as it does, in the eater a peculiar intoxication. The fungus is gathered and dried; and when a native wishes to engage in a debauch, he has but to swallow a piece, when in a few hours he will be in his glory.”—(Johnson’s New Universal Cyclopædia, New York, 1878, article “Mushroom.”)
Poisonous fungi. “Several of this natural order are poisonous, especially those belonging to the genera Amanita and Agaricus.... The sufferers are often relieved by vomiting.”—(Encyclopædia Britannica, edition of 1841, article “Medical Jurisprudence,” vol. xiv. pp. 506, 507.) Speaking of the poisonous fungi, the same authority says: “The effects are singularly various, ... among them being giddiness, confusion, delirium, stupor, coma, and convulsions.”—(Idem, vol. xviii. p. 178, article “Poison.”)
“The boletus mentioned by Juvenal on account of the death of the Emperor Claudius.”—(Cyclopædia, Philadelphia, no date, vol. xxv. article “Mushroom.”)