Poisonous Effects of ChampignQTiSf &"€. 395 



The. method I adopted was to extend upon a sheet of 

 paper the number of species of all the genera enumerated 

 by Dr. 'I'urton in his traoslation nf Gnielin's edition of the 

 Sy-.terna Naturcc, and then to add them together. I used 

 this work as far as the class Gvnandria, because it seems to 

 contain all Willdenow's species, with some additions. Gv- 

 nandria and Monoeijia I extracted from Wiikknow's first 

 part of his touriii voiume, which was not published when 

 Dr. Turion's work, came out: the remaining claiscs were 

 taken from Dr. Turton. From this examination I foimd 

 that in these works are dascribed '■I'OiQ aenera, and li;,803 

 speci«^s, <if plants ; of which 638 genera have but one spe- 

 cies, 263 but two, 174 but three, and 124 but four. 



1 consider this enumeration, however, but as an ap- 

 proximation to the truth. Willdenow's work must be de- 

 fective, and 1 conceive Gmelin to be particularly so in the 

 Cryptogamia clat>s. Probably we should not be far fn)ni 

 the truth if we call the number of described plants 22,000. 

 The first edition of Linuarus's Species Pianturum contained 

 only 7;300 species. — I am, sir, 



Your verv humble servant, 



Nov. 14, 1803. - BOTA-NICIIS. 



POISONOUS EFFECTS OF CHAMPIGNONS. 



A family, consisting of the father, n)other, and daughter, 

 died last month in tlie commune of Porlels, in i'Vaiice, from 

 the effects of caling champignons, which they procured 

 from an old woman who was in the regular habit of col- 

 lecting them for sale. The old woman her.«elf, althoui>h 

 she had used a great quantify of the same kind of cham- 

 pignons as food for several meals, escaped all disncrrecable 

 rffects. Jt was found, upon inquiry, that she was iiitoxi- 

 ca ed with sour wiuc at all her mcal.s, and the effect of ve ] 

 getable acids in counteracting narcotic poisons is well known. 

 Jt is somewhat singul-ar ttiat ihe persons who died, and the 

 inhabitants of ihe place where they lived, concurred in 

 assuring the medical attendants that thev had repeatedly 

 used the same .-pccies of nui^hrooms as food in former sea- 

 sons. But without any bad effects. The French naturalists 

 have suggested that the insalubrious state of the atmosphere 

 during la.s't autumn may have given the poisouous qualiti,es 

 to the champignons in question. 



MEDICAL FUMIGATIONS. 



The French journals lately received contain various re- 

 ports from different parts of the continent on the subj-ji t 



of 



