Agaricus, Agaric Agarikon

Pharmacographia Indica, Dymock, 1893

‘The use of this fungus in medicine is of very ancient date. Dioscorides (iii.,1) describes [?] as male and female, the female being the best and having internally a comb-like structure, whilst the male is convolute, round and compact; both have the same taste, at first sweet, afterwards bitter. He states that it grows in Sarmatia, Galatia in Asia, and Cilicia, and that some suppose it to be a root and others a fungus. It is astringent, hot,and purgative, and is also given in fever, jaundice, nephritis, uterine obstructions, phthisis, dyspepsia, haemorrhage, and pains in the joints; it is alexipharmic. Pliny (25, 57) says: “Agaric is found growing in the form of a fungus of a white colour, upon the trees in the vicinity of the Bosporus. It is administered in doses of four oboli, beaten up in two cyathi of oxymel. The kind that grows in Galatia is generally looked upon as not so efficacious. The male agaric is firmer than the other, and more bitter; it is productive, too, of headache. The female plant is of a looser texture; it has a sweet taste at first, which speedily changes into a bitter flavour.” Pereira states that the drug appears in the modern Greek Pharmacopoeia under the name of [?] with the Turkish Synonym of [?].Ibn
Sina insists upon the great efficacy of agaric as an alexipharniic. He and other Mahometan physicians closely follow the Greeks in their description of its medicinal properties; they consider that it removes all kinds of visceral obstructions and expels diseased humors; the female kind should be used after it has been rubbed through a hair-sieve and all black particles removed. The use of agaric in phthisis is of ancient date; it was revived by De Haen, Barbut, and others in the present century, and subsequently decried by Andral (Phil. Trans., Vols. 48 and 49). The active principle, agaricin, has recently been recommended in doses of 1/12 to 1/6 of a grain as an astringent to check night-sweating and diarrhea, to diminish bronchial secretion, and to dry up the milk after weaning’.