Note 73 — FUNGUSES CONSIDERED AS AN ARTICLE OF DIET.

Those who themselves know better, smile to read such passages as the following, which is to be found in old Gerard’s ‘Herbal’:—“Galen affirms that they (i. e. funguses) are all very cold and moist, and therefore do approach unto a venomous and mothering facultie, and engender a clammy and pituitous nutriment; if eaten, therefore, I give my advice unto those that love such strange and new-fangled meates, to beware of licking honey among thorns, lest the sweetnesse of the one do not countervaille the sharpnesse and pricking of the other.”