AGARIC, or Fauagus Agaricus, in pharmacy, a kind of fungous excrescence growing on the trunks, and large branches of several trees; but chiefly on the larch-tree, and certain oaks. See FUNGUS.
Dioscorides derives its name from a province of Sarmatia, called Azaria; whence it was first brought.
Several authors, and among the rest, Galen, take it for a root; but the common opinion is for its being of the mushroom kind. It is brought from the Levant.
It is white, light, tender, brittle, of a bitter taste, pungent, and a little styptic.
This is what the ancients called the female agaric: As for the male, it is usually yellowish and woody; and is generally excluded out of physic, being only used in dying.
Agaric was a medicine in mighty use among the ancients; not only for the purging of phlegm, but in all distempers proceeding from gross humours and obstructions; as the epilepsy, madness, asthma, etc.
Yet they complained that it weakened the bowels, and purged too violently. They had divers correctors for it; chiefly of the aromatic kind: But Dr. Quincy says, the best way is to banish it for good, as the present practice has almost done: for that it rather makes people sick, than purges them; being very nauseous, and but little cathartic. See PURGATIVE.
By a chemical solution, it passes almost wholly into oil: It yields no volatile salt; but abounds with a sort of earthy matter, and an acid phlegm.
We read of pilule de agarico, and troches of agaric; but they are diffused. Some authors also mention a mineral agaric; which is a whitish stone, found in the clefts of rocks in Germany; called also Zac Lune, and by some naturalists, Lithomagra, and Stenomagra. See LAC LUNE.
