Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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The Proportions Of The Two Albuminous
And Oily Principles Differ In The Various Species Of Animals And Of
Lactescent Plants.
In these last they are most frequently mixed with
other substances hurtful as food; but of which the separation might
perhaps be obtained by chemical processes.
A vegetable milk becomes
nourishing when it is destitute of acrid and narcotic principles; and
abounds less in caoutchouc than in caseous matter.*
(* The milk of the lactescent agarics has not been separately
analysed; it contains an acrid principle in the Agaricus piperatus,
and in other species it is sweet and harmless. The experiments of MM.
Braconnot, Bouillon-Lagrange, and Vauquelin (Annales de Chimie, volume
46, volume 51, volume 79, volume 80, volume 85, have pointed out a
great quantity of albumen in the substance of the Agaricus deliciosus,
an edible mushroom. It is this albumen contained in their juice which
renders them so hard when boiled. It has been proved that morels
(Morchella esculenta) can be converted into sebaceous and adipocerous
matter, capable of being used in the fabrication of soap. (De
Candolle, sur les Proprietes medicinales des Plantes.) Saccharine
matter has also been found in mushrooms by Gunther. It is in the
family of the fungi, more especially in the clavariae, phalli,
helvetiae, the merulii, and the small gymnopae which display
themselves in a few hours after a storm of rain, that organic nature
produces with most rapidity the greatest variety of chemical
principles - sugar, albumen, adipocire, acetate of potash, fat,
ozmazome, the aromatic principles, etc.
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