_Radix Filicis maris_; _Male Fern Rhizome_, _Male Fern Root_; F.
_Racine de Fougère mâle_; G. _Farnwurzel_.
=Botanical Origin=—_Aspidium Filix mas_ Swartz (_Polypodium_ L.
_Nephrodium_ Michaux). The male fern is one of the most widely
distributed species, usually growing in abundance and, in temperate
regions, ascending as high as the arborescent vegetation. It occurs all
over Europe from Sicily to Iceland, in Greenland, throughout Central
and Russian Asia to the Himalaya and Japan; is found throughout China,
and again in Java and the Sandwich Islands, as well as in Africa from
Algeria to the Cape Colony and Mauritius. In North America it is
wanting in the Eastern United States, being principally replaced by
the nearly allied _Aspidium marginale_ Sw. and _A. Goldieanum_ Hook.;
but it is met with in Canada, California and Mexico, as well as in New
Granada, Venezuela, Brazil, and Peru.
=History=—The use of the rhizome of ferns as a vermifuge was well
known to the ancients,[2728] as Theophrastus, Dioscorides and Pliny
all giving curious descriptions of the plant. The remedy would appear
to have been administered also during the middle ages, for it was
again noticed by Valerius Cordus,[2729] and had a place in German
pharmaceutical tariffs of the sixteenth century as well as in
Schröder’s Dispensatory.[2730] Yet Tragus[2731] remarks that, at least
in Germany, the root was little used. It was in fact subsequently
nearly forgotten until revived by the introduction of certain secret
remedies for tapeworm, of which powdered male fern rhizome, combined
with drastic purgatives, was a chief constituent.
[2727] Especially _L. annotinum_, _L. complanatum_ and _L. inundatum_.
[2728] Murray, _Apparatus medicaminum_, v. (1790) 453-471.
[2729] Lib. 4, cap. 156 of the work quoted in the Appendix.
[2730] _Medicin-chymische Apotheke_, Nürnberg, 1656. 20.
[2731] P. 547 of the work quoted in the Appendix.
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.
[2732] Cornaz, _Les familles médicales de la ville de Neuchâtel_, 1864.
20.
[2733] _Traitement contre le Ténia ou ver solitaire, pratiqué à Morat
en Suisse, examiné et éprouvé à Paris._ Publié par ordre du Roi, 1775.
4°, pp. 30. 3 plates, one representing the plant, its rhizome and
leaves.—Also English translation by Dr. Simmons, London, 1778. 8°.
[2734] _Bibliothèque Universelle_, xxx. (1825) 205; xxx. (1826) 326.
[2735] For a full account of the growth and structure of that rhizome
see Luerssen, _Medicinisch-pharmaceutische Botanik_, i. (1878) 504. 561.
=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.
[2736] The chemical nature of this body remains to be ascertained. The
crystals are probably _Filicic Acid_, accompanied by chlorophyl and
essential oil.
[2737] _Journal de Médecine de Bruxelles_, 1867 and 1868—also in the
_Jahresbericht_ of Wiggers and Husemann, 1869. 21.
=Uses=—The ethereal extract has been prescribed for all kinds of
intestinal worms; but recent experience goes to prove that its
effects are chiefly exhibited in cases of tapeworm. It is equally and
thoroughly efficacious in the three kinds respectively termed _Tænia
solium_, _T. medio-cannellata_ and _Bothriocephalus latus_.
=Substitution=—The rhizomes of _Asplenium Filix fœmina_ Bernh.,
_Aspidium montanum_ Vogl. (_A. Oreopteris_ Sw.) and _A. spinulosum_
Sw. may scarcely be mistaken for that of _A. Filix mas_. The best
means of distinguishing them is afforded by transverse sections of the
leaf-bases. In _Filix mas_, the section exhibits 8 vascular bundles,—in
the other ferns named, only 2,—a difference easily ascertained by
examination under a lens. Practically, no other indigenous fern than
_A. Filix mas_ affords a rhizome of sufficient bulk so as to be
remunerative. We are not acquainted with that of the American _Aspidium
marginale_ Swartz, the section of which shows 6 vascular bundles; its
extract is stated by Cressler (1878) to be perfectly active.
=_Thallogens._=