THE LAWS OF PROTOPLASM 1 37 



to know the kinds of toadstools that are harmless 

 before eating them. 



One of the mushrooms that causes many deaths 

 annually belongs to the Amanita group of fungi. 

 It produces a substance that is not destroyed by 

 the heat of cooking nor is it modified by the 

 action of digestive juices. So when these plants 

 are eaten, the poison passes into the blood where 

 it usually causes death after producing a well 

 known series of changes. (Fig. 45.) 



The poison grown in the salivary gland of a 

 rattlesnake and the Amanita poison grown in the 

 cells of this mushroom are both natural products 

 of these organisms. Scientists have decided to 

 call the product of the salivary gland of the rattle- 

 snake a poison, while the poison manufactured by 

 the Amanita is dubbed a toxine. 



When bacteria live in the body of animals as 

 parasites, they frequently cause disease as shown 

 for bees, and as is well known in the diseases of 

 diphtheria, tuberculosis, bubonic plague, etc., com- 

 mon to man. It has been shown that there is 

 produced as a result of their living in such re- 

 lations to another living body certain waste prod- 

 ucts to which the term toxine as defined above has 

 been applied. These toxine products are believed 

 to be the main cause of the disease which follows 

 after the bacteria have been living for a certain 

 length of time in the body. (Fig. 46.) 



