84 2 THE AGARICACEAE OP MICHIGAN 



is eaten in the Erzgebirge of Saxony and Bohemia. 11 Treated and 

 untreated it has been eaten without bad results. A colored woman 

 in Washington recited in detail how she was in the habit of cook- 

 ing it. Rejecting gills and peeling the cap, specimens were boiled 

 in salt water and then steeped in vinegar, then washed and cooked 

 and served with steak, the whole process a rational process to 

 remove poisons (?). Michael 27 worked up to eating a thick mediuni- 

 sized cap (cooked) and "properly peeled." It tasted ill but did 

 in. harm. Then he ate a specimen prepared as salad which tasted 

 worse. On this ground he classes it as "inedible." For reasons 

 like this we are loath to take any one man's testimony in the 

 great field of mycophagy. Peck has repeatedly received reports 

 from various people who eat it. 54 He also records the eating of the 

 tine variety formo.sa of A. muscaria by a sheep, but Ford" 2 suggests 

 that the herbivora are (at least, by mouth) immune to this toxin 

 as well as to others. There seem to be seasonable and local varia- 

 tion* in the toxicity of Amanita muscaria 55 and of other species. 



One-tenth of a raw A. muscaria has produced in a man of thirty- 

 seven years, eleven days of illness, with typical muscaria symptoms, 

 but accompanied by fever. 56 



The use of Amanita muscaria simply and purely for producing 

 drunkenness is well known, but has not been satisfactorily explain- 

 ed. Krasheninnikoff, who travelled in Siberia and Kamchatka for 

 ten years (1733), reports that the Koraks used the fly Amanita — 

 three or four for a moderate dose, and ten for a thorough drunk. 

 Langsdorff (1803) confirms this and Kennan 28 describes it in some 

 detail in his first Siberian journey. The natives call the fungus 

 "muk-a-moor." Its sale has been made a penal offense by Russian 

 law but "prohibition does not prohibit." One fungus may sell for 

 |20 worth of furs, and supply does not equal demand. The dried 

 cap is used ; a duly flavored decoction is made from them or pieces 

 are swallowed whole. First effects come on rapidly and make the 

 candidate cheerful and merry, then drowsy and sleepy for ten 

 or twelve hours and he awakes in a state of exhaustion. During 

 the stage of excitement there is a horrible kind of delirium and the 

 experience of visions of varied character. The intoxication is 

 prolonged or passed on (among the lowest and most degraded 

 Koraks i by drinking the renal excretion and thus a spree may be 

 economically kept up for a week. 24 Evidently the muscarin is ex- 

 creted unchanged. (See Ziemssen, Fungus Poisoning, Vol. 17.) 

 Toleration develops, though death from an orgy is not uncommon. 

 The meat of animals dead of muscarin poisoning has a pronounced 



