OCR Text |
Show 886 ERINGO*LEAVED LICHEN. carpiums. ERINGO-LEAVED LICHEN. Whenfresh, the colour of this lichen is greenish yellow, or grayish brown; but, when dried, greenish white, or gray. In Sweden principally, and in Germany, a variety is found with smaller, tenderer, crisper leaves, destitute of hairs on the margin, of a paler lead colour, orange beneath. It is gathered in rainy weather, because it is then more easily dee tached from the stones. In the countries whereit abounds, it is used for the nourishment both of cattle and of man. Proust has analysed it with much success. Mr. A pound of dry lichen immersed in cold water soon resumed its fresh colour, and weighed two pounds two ounces, gave out a pale fawnco- lour, but none of its bitterness. When previously powdered, it gives out a bitter, pale, yellow juice, losing about three per cent. in cold, and six in boiling water, ‘This bitterness resides in an extractive which is employed in Iceland to dye a brown colour. Byboiling lichen a quarter of an hour, it becomes sufficiently tender for use as an esculent vegetable. Lichen cooked in this manner has a kind of membranous elasticity, peculiar to some of the alge and fungi; and, after being dried, has only to be moistened with boiling water to resume this elasticity. Its appearanceis not very prepossessing, having an unéqual yellow colour, and a slight marine taste. A pound of dry lichen by boiling weighs three pounds, and when dried again is reduced to two-thirds of a pound. The decoction has a clear yellow colour, anda slightlybitter taste, which, even when made with eight waters, on cooling becomes a tremulous jelly, without any viscidity. This jelly on standing contracts, expresses the water, cracks, and dries into transparent angular fragments, of a deep red colour, insoluble in cold water, soluble in boiling water, from whichit is preci pitated by infusion of galls. 3y nitric acid it is converted into oxalic acid. ‘The insoluble part dissolves readily in nitric acid, forming oxalate of lime and oxalic acid, and is converted into a gelatinous pulp bypotass, According to this analysis, one hundred parts of dry lichen give of Bitter‘extractive~ =: (--.o..2- 4.5 -- 3 Matter soluble in hot water - - 33 Matter insoluble in hot water - 64— 100. The last substance has much analogy with gluten, and the second with starch, particularly in the remarkable property of 887 being precipitated by infusion of galls. It differs from it, however, in not being glutinous, aud in the solid matter of the jelly contracting and separating from the fluid, as curd does from whey. MEDICAL USE. Fromthe analysis of this lichen it appears to consist princi. pally of a nutritious substance, combined with a bitter ; and on the combination of these, its medical virtues probably depend, It is used, according to Arnemann, 1. in cough with expectoration, threatening to terminate in consumption ; after neglected catarrhs, the consequence of peri- pneumony, when the expectoration becomes more copious and purulent. 2. In emaciation from measles, (Schoenheide); from wounds and ulcers with great discharge, (Plenk); after salivation, and from actual ulcers in the lungs, whenthere is no fever, (Scopoli), especially after neglected colds, or from translated morbid mate ter. In a high degree of the disease it doeslittle good, but the night sweats are diminished byit, (Millin). In pituitous phthisis it is of great service. 4. In hemoptysis, (Frize). 5. In chincough, (Tode). 6. In diabetes, as a tonic andpalliative remedy. It is commonly exhibited in decoction with water, broth, or milk, after the bitter has been extracted from it by steeping it in warm water ; or in substance, boiled in chocolate or cocoa, or made into a jelly with boiling water, Half an ounce, or an ounce, must be used daily, and continued for some time. Proust disbelieves its specific virtues, but recommends it strongly as an article of diet in times of scarcity, and as a very convenient anti« scorbutic vegetable in long sea voyages. Having become of late a very fashionable remedy, various dif. ferent modes of preparation have been invented, for which see the bill of Mr. Hastings, a very ingenious chemist in the Haymarket, who has been extremely assiduous in regard to this, as well as several other valuable articles in medicine. |