Important: Safety Warning
This page describes trade processes that use dangerously toxic materials such as cyanide solutions, mercury amalgams, or strong acids. These processes require training, equipment, and precautions far beyond what the text describes.
In addition, this page directs the use of hazardous substances — such as benzine, gasoline, lye, or strong acids — for household tasks. These materials are highly flammable, corrosive, or poisonous, and the practices described have caused fires, burns, and poisonings.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
Merulius Lacrymans
This is often called the Dry-rot Fungus. It is the most frequent cause, though not the only one, of the form of decay in the woodwork of houses and of greenhouses commonly known as Dry-rot. The wood is traversed in every direction by the thread-like cells (mycelium) of the fungus; and the tissue is thereby so altered in its nature as to crumble readily on pressure. Merulius attracts moisture, and is constantly damp. It spreads over large surfaces in dark, ill-ventilated spaces, when in the spore-producing stage, and its surface (hymenium) is then marked with pores, or small tubes.
Remedies. The remedies employed for the attacks of this fungus (which, if unchecked, proves most destructive in houses, as it spreads rapidly) are, where possible, soaking the woodwork with strong solutions of corrosive sublimate, or of copper sulphate. Since well-dried or seasoned wood is far less liable to be attacked, such wood alone should be used in house-building. Good ventilation, to insure the dryness of the woodwork in the house, is an essential means for the prevention of Dry-rot.