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convulsions, coma, and death ; and it is a most remark- 

 able fact that it communicates its narcotic properties to 

 the fluids of the debauchee, which, in consequence, are 

 carefully preserved and eagerly consumed during the 

 winter months, when the season of the plant is over, and 

 the stock of dried specimens is exhausted. Thus a whole 

 village is intoxicated through the medium of one man, 

 and one fungus serves to prolong these most fearful and 

 disgusting orgies for many days at a time. It is a sin- 

 gular circumstance that the very same erroneous impres- 

 sions as to size and distance produced by this plant, are 

 also created by the haschisch of India, and are frequently 

 noticed among idiots and lunatics. It is not improbable 

 that many poor half-demented creatures, particularly if 

 old and ugly, have suffered martyrdom at the stake dur- 

 ing the witch-mania of Scotland owing to this natural 

 defect, inability to step over a straw being considered 

 the conclusive test of familiarity with evil spirits ! 



It is curious to observe how the effects produced by 

 various species of poisonous fungi, should be so very like 

 in many particulars to those produced by alcoholic 

 liquors. The effects in both cases may perhaps be traced 

 to the same cause. Alcohol is the product of fermenta- 

 tion or corruption arrested at a certain stage ; and fungi 

 may also be said to be the products of decaying organic 

 matter, similarly arrested at a certain stage, and em- 

 bodied in a new form of vegetable growth, the decom- 

 posing process in their food being an organizing process 

 in them, or in other words, the force given off in the 

 decomposition of their matrix becoming their "vital 

 force ;" and hence it is but reasonable to expect, when 



