20 



itliosyncrasies should enable some pei'sons safely to eat what is poisonous 

 to others, the rule that such are to be avoided should never be disre- 

 garded by the ordinary collector, nor should it be departed from even by 

 experts, except upon the clearest evidence that in the given case the de- 

 l^arture is safe. It is certainly the part of discretion, vphen in doubt, to 

 take no risks. 



Recent Instances of Mushkoom Poisoning. 



About a year ago a physician in Vineland, New Jersey, furnished the 

 following in regard to his personal experience of the effects of mushroom 

 poisoning : " My Avife, daughter, and self selected, according to an article 

 in the Encyclopedia Britannica, what we thought were a nice lot of mush- 

 rooms, cooked them in milk, and ate them foi' dinner with relish. In a 

 few hours we were vomiting, laughing, and staggering about the house- 

 We could not control ourselves from the elbows to the finger tips, nor 

 our legs from the knee to the ends of our toes. In other words, we were 

 drunk on mushrooms. The mushrooms grew within the shade of Nor- 

 way spruce and other ornamental trees on the lawn in front of our house. 

 They were pure white inside and out : smooth shiny tops that easily 

 peeled off. The cajos were about two or three inches in diameter, and 

 had a stem of the same length. On the day before, my wife and a friend 

 ate some of these mushrooms raw and experienced no bad effects. The 

 next day at noon we ate them cooked in milk with a little butter, and 

 thej' were very good. About two o'clock our food did not seem to digest 

 well, and soon my daughter, sixteen years of age, vomited all her din- 

 ner. Then my wife began to feel the effects, and took hot water freely, 

 sweet oil, currant wine, and at last an overdo^ of tartar-emetic. Of 

 course, she was the sickest of all. I was cool and happy and amused at 

 the situation, and drunk from my head down. I did not vomit, and my 

 mushrooms remained with me for at least 48 hours. I took nothing but 

 hot water and sweet oil. A friend of my daughter's of her own age par- 

 took of the mess and had not a single bad symptom." 



A physician from West Grove, Pennsylvania, writes : " I determined to 

 risk a test of the Amanita muscaria. Accordingly, two good-sized speci- 

 mens were steamed in butter. I ate one, and another member of my 

 family ate the other, feeling that the consequences could not be serious 

 from so small an amount. About an hour after eating, a sensation of 

 nausea and faintuess was experienced in both cases, followed by nervous 

 tingling, some cold perspiration and accelerated and weakened action of 

 the heart. Considei'able prostration ensued within two hours. Knon'ing 

 that sulphate of atropin has proved the most successful remedy for the 

 active principle of the Fly agaric, Amanita muscaria, a small dose, one- 

 sixtieth of a grain, was taken by each. Considerable relief was experienced 

 within 30 minutes, and all unpleasant symptoms had disappeared within 6 

 hours, without repeating the medicine." 



