83 4 THE AGARICACEAE OF MICHIGAN 



alkaloid which he named bulbosine, but was never able to isolate. 

 In 1ST" Ore concluded, on biological grounds alone, that Amanita 

 phalloides must contain an alkaloid and this hypothetical poison 

 he named phalloidin. These names are no longer employed. 

 Kobert (1891) established the important fact that extracts of A. 

 phalloides contain a substance which lakes or dissolves the red 

 blood corpuscles of many animals and of man. With this "hemoly- 

 sin" we shall have much to do in the remainder of this paper. 

 Ford and his co-workers have investigated it most satisfactorily 

 in their epoch-making labors which have been fully reported. 

 This hemolysin is not the active principle — for we shall see that 

 it is very easily destroyed by heat, much less than is usually 

 employed in cooking, and that the digestive juices break it up as a 

 rule. Furthermore, individuals dying of A. phalloides intoxication 

 do not show symptoms which are to be ascribed to this kind of 

 poison. Kobert gave this blood-dissolving hemolysin the name of 

 phallin, regarded it as the essential poison, and gave it undeserved 

 importance. He placed it in the group of protein-like poisons known 

 as toxalbuniins because of its susceptibility to destruction by heat. 

 Beside the hemolysin, and more constantly present, Kobert found 

 later an alcohol-soluble substance which was extremely poisonous 

 to animals. This he regarded (1900) as an alkaloid, soluble in 

 alcohol, which would not produce fatty degenerations. A tox- 

 albumin (near thujon and pulegon i. was held responsible for these. 

 Frey, 16 in 1912, comments, "The whole study of mushroom 

 poisoning still lies very much in the dark. It is on the same plane 

 as thirty years ago." He says that studies on muscarin and 

 phallin show old results and theories to be wrong, but otherwise 

 there is no progress. The publication of results of recent American 

 investigators seems to have been unknown to him, for progress has 

 been made, and a basis for further results established. Murrill 17 

 comments (1910) that it is remarkable how little is really known, 

 and that the practical importance of the subject is vastly increas- 

 ing. The important work of recent American investigators began 

 with the proof (Ford 18 ) that extracts of Amanita phalloides 

 contain the hemolytic material described by Kobert and in addition 

 a heat-resistant body which will reproduce in animals the majority 

 of the lesions described in fatal cases of .1 . phalloides intoxication in 

 man. These two substances were named by him the Amanita- 

 hemolysin and the Amanita-toxin. The further chemical study 

 upon the plant was carried out by Abel and Ford, 19 by Schlesinger 

 and Ford, 20 and Ford and Prouty. 21 In these papers it was shown 



