350 POISONOUS AND EDIBLE FUNGI 



Toxicology. The vast amount of experimentation that has been 

 conducted to determine the nature of the toxic principles in 

 poisonous fleshy fungi can be appreciated from Ford and Clark's 

 report (1914). They indicate that in 1826 Letellier extracted 

 from Amanita phalloides a heat-stable substance that he called 

 amanitin. Later he found, in addition to this thermostable sub- 

 stance that he thought to be a glucosidal alkaloid, a substance 

 capable of attacking mucous membranes. In 1877 Ore [Ford and 

 Clark (1914), p. f 71 ] ascribed poisoning by A. phalloides to a hy- 

 pothetical alkaloid that he named phalloidin. In 1891 Robert 

 [Ford and Clark (1914), p. 177] extracted from A. phalloides a 

 hemolytic substance, readily destroyed by heat, which he named 

 phallin. At first he believed it to be the essential poison, but he 

 later extracted an alcohol-soluble alkaloid that was extremely 

 poisonous to his experimental animals. 



The analyses by Ford (1906) showed that A. phalloides con- 

 tains, besides phallin, the hemolytic principle of Robert, another 

 substance of toxic nature. Ford verified the thermolabile nature 

 of phallin and found that the other substance was heat-stable and 

 resistant to digestion by pepsin and pancreatin. He also prepared 

 antiserum that was effective against the stable substance but had no 

 neutralizing effect on phallin. To this stable extractive Ford 

 gave the name amanita-toxin. 



Schlesinger and Ford (1907) purified amanita-toxin to the ex- 

 tent that it did not give the reactions of proteins, glucosides, or 

 alkaloids, and concluded that it ". . . appears to be an aromatic 

 phenol so combined with an amine group that it readily forms an 

 indol or pyrrol ring." 



Since Amanita virosa, A. verna, Pholiota autumnalis, and Hygro- 

 phorns conicns induce similar clinical symptoms, they may be as- 

 sumed to contain the same amanita-toxin as does A. phalloides. 

 Other species which contain amanita-toxin are A. porphyria, A. 

 strobilijorvris, A. radicata, A. chlorinosoma, A. viappa, A. vior- 

 risii, A. citrina, A. cremilata, and Avianitopsis volvata. 



The toxic principle in Amanita vniscaria was isolated by 

 Schmiedeberg and Roppe [Ford and Clark (1914), p. 1771 in 

 1869 and given the name muscarine. There was also isolated from 

 this same species the alkaloid choline, which, on uniting with 

 oxygen, as it does when the flv agaric decays, becomes muscarine. 

 Robert [Ford and Clark (1914), p. 177 J maintained that this 



