[53] _Amadou_ is largely used in Italy, where it is called _esca_; the Latins likewise knew it by this name, though their more common appellation for it was _fomes_; the Byzantine Greeks hellenicized _esca_ into ὕσκα, which was their word for it; the ancient Greeks called it ζώπυρον. Salmasius tells us how it used to be made in his time, which indeed was the same as now: the fungus was first boiled, then beaten to pieces in a mortar, next hammered out to deprive it of its woody fibres, and lastly, being steeped in a strong solution of nitre, was left to dry in the sun. It appears, on the testimony of the anonymous author of the article “Fungo” in the ‘Dizionario Classico di Medicina,’ that it is also eaten when young; but I cannot speak of it from personal experience:—“In prima età mangiasi colto di fresco affettato e condito d’ogni modo; specialmente nelle provincie di Belluno ed Udine, o salasi per la quadragesima.” [54] “Di questo fungo servavanosene i barbieri in cambio delle strugghie dette più volgaremente _codette_, atte a far riprendere il perduto filo a loro rasoi.” [55] “This is the ‘Moucho more’ of the Russians, Kamtchadales, and Koriaks, who use it for intoxication; they sometimes eat it dry, but more commonly immersed in a liquor made from the _Epilobium_, and when they drink this liquor, they are seized with convulsions in all their limbs, followed with that kind of raving which accompanies a burning fever. They personify this mushroom, and, if they are urged by its effects to suicide, or any other dreadful crime, they pretend to obey its commands; to fit themselves for premeditated assassination they recur to the use of the Moucho more.”—_Rees’s Cyclopædia, art. “Agaric.”_ [56] In such cases the minute fungus is probably absorbed _in ovo_ and disseminated with the sap through the plant; as this ascends from the root, it remains undeveloped however till the corn is in ear, at which time it finds in the nascent grain the necessary conditions for its own development. [57] The mischief thus produced by dry-rot may be arrested by steeping the affected timber in a solution of corrosive sublimate, which, forming a chemical union with the juices of the woody fibre, prevents their being abstracted by the dry-rot, that would else have maintained itself and spread at their expense. [58] A reputation that revives may not be so good as one that survives, but the very fact of such revival shows that the good opinion formerly entertained was not altogether groundless. [59] Enslin was in the habit of uniting this _Polyporus_ with Peruvian Bark, and obtained from it the happiest results: “Omnium mihi arridet connubium ejus cum cortice Peruviano”—to which “connubium,” no doubt, some of its good effects are to be attributed.