13 



room (/miscari/i). Tlmsc autliois puhlishoJ in 18(1'.) u series of intercKt- 

 ing experiments made with //luscarht, having relation to its eft'ect upon 

 the heart, res])iration, secretions and digestive organs, etc., and this was 

 8U}>])lomented by other experiments made by tlieir pupils, Prof. R. Boehm 

 and E. Harnack. Schmiedeberg and Koppe's work rehites to the effect of 

 this ])oison on man as well as upon the lower animals. Dr. J. L. Prevost 

 in 1S74: reviewed the investigations made by Schmiedeberg and Koppe in 

 a paper read before the Biological Society of Geneva, adding some con- 

 tirmatory observations of his own relative to experiments made with mus- 

 carin upon the lower animals. The experiments made by these authors 

 demonstrated '* that muscarin arrests the action of a frog's heart, that a 

 muscarined frog's heart began to beat immediately under the influence of 

 atropin, and further that it was impossible to muscarine a frogs heart 

 while under the inllueuce of atropin." 



Schmiedeberg subjected cats and dogs to doses of muscarin, large 

 enough to produce death, and when the animals were about to succumb, 

 injected hypodermically from one to two milligrams of sulphate of 

 atroplit, after which the toxic symptoms disappeared and the animals 

 completely revived. Prof. Boehm found that digitalin likewise re-estab- 

 lished heart action when suspended by the action of muscarin. 



In man the fatal termination, in cases of mushroom poisoning, where 

 the antidote is not used, may take place in from 5 to 12 hours or not for 

 two or three days. 



According to Prof. R. Robert's recent chemical analysis, the " Fly 

 mushroom," Amanita muscaria, contains not only the very poisonous 

 alkaloid innscarin. and the ainanitin of Letellier (choliti), but also a 

 third alkaloid, /)ife«^r(>piw. The pilz-atropin (mushroom atropin) was 

 discovered by Schmiedeberg in a co))nnercial jireparation of nmscariii^ 

 and later Prof. Robert discovered it in varying proportions in fresh mush- 

 rooms of different species. The effect of this third alkaloid, it is claimed, 

 is to neutralize to a greater or less extent the effect of the poisonous one. 

 Under its influence, when present in quantity, the poison is almost en- 

 tirely neutralized. Contraction of the pupils changes to dilation, and 

 slowing of the pulse may disappear. Only through the presence of this 

 natural antidote in the Fly mushroom, sa3's Robert, is it possible, as in 

 some parts of France and Russia, to eat without danger this mushroom, 

 which contains 10*'„ of sugar (trehalose or mycose) in a fermented and 

 unfermented condition. He states also that delirium, intoxication, and 

 other symptoms which, according to Prof. Dittmer of Ramschatka and vai'i- 

 ous scientific travellers, are reported effects of the Fly mushroom in the ex- 

 treme north, are not experienced in the same degree in southern Russia. 

 This dift'erence in action, he thinks, may be very properly attributed to the 

 varying proportion of the above-mentioned atropin in the mushroom or 

 to the presence of substances which develop only in the extreme north. 



The symptoms of muscwbi poisoning, apart from vomiting and purg- 

 ing, are slowing of the pulse, cerebral disturbance, contraction of the 



