In producing or aggravating skin diseases.

On _Animals_,

By deteriorating or diminishing their food supplies.
By establishing themselves as parasites on some species.

On _Plants_,

By hastening the decay of timber.
By establishing themselves as parasites.
By impregnating the soil.

But it is not proved that they produce epidemic diseases in man or
animals, or that the dissemination of their multitudinous spores in
the atmosphere has any appreciable influence on the health of the
human race. Hence their association with cholera, diarrhoea, measles,
scarlatina, and the manifold ills that flesh is heir to, as producing
or aggravating causes, must, in the present state of our knowledge and
experience, be deemed apocryphal.

[A] A detailed account of the peculiar properties of this fungus and
its employment as a narcotic will be found in Cooke's "Seven
Sisters of Sleep," p. 337. It is figured in Greville's
"Scottish Cryptogamic Flora," plate 54.

[B] Pour chaque 500 grammes de champignons coupes en morceaux
d'assez mediocre grandeur, il faut un litre d'eau acidulee par
deux ou trois cuillerees de vinaigre, ou deux cuillerees de sel
gris. Dans le cas ou l'on n'aurait que de l'eau a sa
disposition, il faut la renouveler une ou deux fois. On
laisse les champignons macerer dans le liquids pendant deux
heures entieres, puis on les lave a grande eau. Ils sont
alors mis dans de l'eau froide qu'on porte a l'ebullition,
et apres un quart d'heure ou une demi-heure, on les retire, on
les lave, on les essuie, et ou les apprete soit comme un
mets special, et ils comportent les memes assaisonnements
que les autres, soit comme condiment.--_Morel Traite des
Champignons_, p. lix. Paris, 1865.

[C] Smith's "Chart of Poisonous Fungi," fig. 10.

[D] Ibid. fig. 27. It would be well to become acquainted with all
these figures.

[E] "Skin Diseases of Parasitic Origin," by Dr. Tilbury Fox. London,
1863.

[F] Robin, "Hist. Nat. des Vegetaux Parasites." Paris, 1853.
Kuchenmeister, "Animal and Vegetable Parasites of the Human
Body." London, Sydenham Society, 1857.

[G] Berkeley, in "Intellectual Observer," Nov., 1862. "Mycetoma," II.
Vandyke Carter, 1874.

[H] Hallier and Zurn, "Zeitschrift fur Parasitenkunde." Jena