Category:Fungi: Difference between revisions

When a man's frozen body was recovered from a melting glacier high in the [[Ötztal Alps]] in 1991, having lain there since about 3300 BCE, [[Ötzi|the Iceman]] was found to have carried with him pieces of two fungi. One, a tinder fungus, served for carrying fire. The other, the [[birch polypore]] (Fomitopsis betulina), is neither food nor tinder, and the explanation most widely accepted for its presence is medicinal: the birch polypore is purgative and acts against intestinal parasites, and the Iceman is known to have carried a whipworm infection.<ref name="peintner1998">Peintner U, Pöder R, Pümpel T. The Iceman's fungi. Mycological Research. 1998;102(10):1153-1162.</ref> On that reading it is among the oldest direct evidence of a person carrying a medicine, and the medicine is a fungus.

Fungi have been medicine, and poison, and intoxicant, for as long as the human record reaches. The [[Amanita muscaria|fly agaric]], the scarlet mushroom of folklore, is among the most ancient of the intoxicating fungi, and has been proposed as the soma of the [[Vedas|Vedic]] hymns.[citation needed] The [[Psilocybin mushrooms|psilocybin mushrooms]] were known to the peoples of [[Mesoamerica]] as teonanácatl, the flesh of the gods. The [[ergot]] fungus, growing on rye, poisoned medieval Europe in recurring epidemics of [[ergotism]], the burning affliction known as Saint Anthony's fire, and was later turned to use in [[obstetrics]]. The antibiotic [[penicillin]], the foundation of the modern antibiotic era, was drawn from a fungus of the genus Penicillium, isolated after [[Alexander Fleming]] observed in 1928 that a mold had killed the bacteria growing around it.<ref name="fleming1929">Fleming A. On the antibacterial action of cultures of a penicillium, with special reference to their use in the isolation of B. influenzae. British Journal of Experimental Pathology. 1929;10(3):226-236.</ref> In the medical traditions of [[traditional Chinese medicine|East Asia]], tonic fungi such as [[reishi]] and [[lion's mane]] have been used as medicines for many centuries.[citation needed]