Pharmacographia : A history of the principal drugs of vegetable origin, met with in Great Britain and British India / by Friedrich A. Flückiger and Daniel Hanbury.

  • Friedrich August Flückiger
Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Pharmacographia : A history of the principal drugs of vegetable origin, met with in Great Britain and British India / by Friedrich A. Flückiger and Daniel Hanbury. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    I the yellowish-red RhagonycJia melanura Fabr., but not bees. On this account the beetle in question has been supposed to be instrumental in the development of ergot, and it may possibly be so, but only by transporting the saccharine mucus from one plant to another. The honey-dew of rye contains neither oil-drops nor starch. After dilution with water, it produces a rapid and abundant separation of cuprous oxide from an alkaline solution of cupric tartrate. Dried over sulphuric acid, it solidifies into a crystalline mass. After a few days the drops of honey-dew dry up and disappear from the ear. The grain at this period becomes completely disintegrated, and devoid of starch. The ergotized soft ovaries are covered with, and penetrated by a white, spongy, felted tissue, the mycelium of the young fungus. It is made up of slender, threadlike cells, the Ityphoi, the outer layer of which consists of radially-diverging cells, the basidia. The whole mycelium forms by its crevices and folds a number of cavities opening externally; from its outer layer, which is also called the hymenium or spermato- phorum, an immense number of agglutinated, elongated granules, the conidia, are separated. These cells, the products of the basidia, are not more than four mkm. in length, and give the floral organs the appear- ance of being covered with a whitish dust. The honey-dew likewise contains an abundance of conidia, but it is only on dilution that they are precipitated and become easily perceptible; the formation of the honey-dew is intimately connected with that of the conidia themselves. Ergot in this primary or mycelium stage was regarded as an independent fungus by L^veille (1827), who named it Sphacelia segetum. According to Kuhn (1863), it may even be directly reproducd by germination of the conidia within the ears of lye. The mycelium penetrates and envelops the caryopsis, with the ex- ception of the apex, and thereby prevents its further growth, destroying especially the epicarp and the embryo. At the base of the caryopsis, there is formed by tumefaction and gradual transverse separation of the thread-cells of the mycelium, a more compact kernel-like body (the future ergot) violet-black without, white within, which gradually but largely increases in size, and ultimately separates from the mycelium as the loose tissue of the latter dries and shrinks up after the completion of its functions. By this growth, the remains of the caryopsis, still recognizable by their hairs and by the rudiments of the style, as well as by the surviving portions of the mycelium-tissue, become visible above the palea3 on the apex of the mature ergot, now projecting prominently from the ear. Very rarely the ergot is crowned by a fully developed seed; in the commercial drug, the apex is usually broken off. It is evident that in the process of development just described, the very tissue of the caryopsis of the rye does not undergo a transformation, but that it is simply destroyed. Neither in external form, nor in anatomi- cal structure does ergot exhibit any resemblance to a caryopsis or a seed, although its development takes place between the flowering time and that at which the rye begins to ripen. It has been regarded as a com- plete fungus, and as such was named by De Candolle (181G) Sclerotium Clavus and by Fries Spermoidia Clavus. No further change in the ercjot occurs while it remains in the ear: but laid on damp earth, interesting phenomena take ])lace. At certain points, small orbicular patches of the rind fold themselves back, and
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