248 FOOTNOTES FROM 



alcohol. When extracted by water and alcohol, a brown, 

 solid substance called amanitine is obtained, which is 

 more fixed, and resists such processes. The specific 

 action of these two constituents of the poisonous fungi 

 upon the human frame, has not as yet been investigated. 

 They sometimes act like narcotics, producing comatose 

 and other affections of the nervous system, and at other 

 times their action is of an irritant nature, more approach- 

 ing that of arsenic. Some act as anaesthetics, giving 

 complete insensibility to pain ; while, unlike chloroform 

 and ether, the individual under their influence remains 

 conscious all the tune. The common puff-ball deprives 

 the patient of speech, motion, and sensibility to pain, 

 while he is still conscious of everything that happens 

 around him ; thus realizing " that night-mare of our 

 dreams in which we lie stretched on the funeral bier, sen- 

 sible to the weeping of friends, aware of the last screw 

 being fixed in the coffin, and the last clod clapped down 

 upon us in the churchyard, and are yet unable to move 

 a hand or a lip for our own deliverance." When slowly 

 burnt, this fungus has long been employed for stupify- 

 ing bees, and thus robbing their hives of the honey with 

 impunity. Experiments, with the same species, have 

 also recently been made on dogs, cats, and rabbits, and 

 similar effects have invariably been found to ensue. 

 When the fumes of the burning fungus are slowly in- 

 haled, they gradually produce all the symptoms of intoxi- 

 cation, followed first by drowsiness, and then by perfect 

 insensibility to pain, terminating, if the inhalation be con- 

 tinued, in vomiting, convulsions, and ultimately in death. 

 The qualities of fungi seem to vary with the climate 



