A PUR TENES. M METRE PE rr. 
Me i s § (UNES 
UY 
1899] Collins,— A case of Boletus poisoning 23 
jarred ; but after a while this passed away. My sister's recovery natu- 
raly took longer, but after two or three weeks the last symptoms of 
sensitiveness disappeared. 
Some of the other results, however, lasted longer. For quite a while 
I received newspaper cuttings announcing that a man in Malden, the 
name usually something like mine, but seldom exactly the same, who 
considered himself an expert botanist, had poisoned himself and family 
by toadstools that he mistook for mushrooms. My friends would say, 
** Why, Collins, how did you make such a mistake? I thought every- 
body knew that mushrooms were pink underneath." 
I am now willing to eat the field mushroom, the fairy ring, and the 
puff-ball; beyond that I do not care to go on my own judgment; and 
I doubt if there is any authority that could induce me to eat a Boletus, 
however tempting. 
I have given my experience with considerable detail, to illustrate 
how different the symptoms were from Amanita poisoning, and yet 
how narrow an escape my sister had, if not myself. In neither case 
was there any vertigo, headache, or acute pain. The symptoms ap- 
peared within two hours, and indicated an intense irritant, not a 
poison, that had affected the system. As soon as the substance was 
expelled, the difficulty ceased. The danger would seem to be that a 
delicate constitution would be exhausted before the poison could be 
expelled. 
Within a week after the occurrence, I went again to the locality 
where the plants grew, and found some still there ; but a week makes 
much difference with fleshy fungi. I sent the best specimens I could 
find to Prof. C. H. Peck, who kindly examined them for me. He 
thought the plant was probably B. miniato-olivaceus var. sensibilis 
Peck, the doubt being due to the poor condition of the specimens. 
The next year I visited the place at the same date, and again sent 
specimens to Professor Peck; and he wrote me that there was no 
longer any doubt of the correctness of the determination first given. 
There is reason to suppose that the plate in Palmer's book was 
drawn from a specimen of B. miniato-olivaceus var. sensibilis; the 
referring it to B. subtomentosus, an edible species of Europe, is cer- 
tainly unfortunate, for this mushroom abounds in the woods in this 
vicinity; and medical attendance may not be always as prompt as it 
was in the case of myself and family. 
