74 THE POISONOUS 



the maladies with which they are uniformly connected, is 

 made still more probable by the demonstration of the ex- 

 istence in insects, and even many larger animals, of con- 

 tagious cryptogamous diseases, which, transferred from 

 animals to plants, and from plants to animals, become 

 very destructive, not only to their immediate victims, but 

 to important commercial interests dependent on them. 



It is scarcely necessary to prove to any intelligent 

 reader, that the fungi are commonly poisonous. The 

 caution with which mushrooms are bought, and examined, 

 and cooked, evinces a sufficient knowledge everywhere, of 

 the danger of eating the wild kinds. But as I am elabo- 

 rating an argument upon a new and difficult subject, a 

 few quotations, to show the sentiment of the best informed 

 persons, may not be inexpedient. "By far the greater 

 part of the tribe," says Comstock, "are poisonous. Some 

 of them are so exceedingly virulent, as to destroy life in 

 a short time. Adepts, therefore, in botany, dread the 

 wild kinds." "So poisonous," says the author of the 

 article mushroom, in Rees Cyclopedia, "is one species of 

 agaric, as to kill the very flies as they settle on it. The 

 Agaricus muscarius is therefore used to poison flies and 

 bed-bugs. Burnett quotes several curious cases where 

 death has arisen in persons who have eaten mouldy (fun- 

 giferous) bread, mouldy pork, mouldy cheese, mouldy 

 ham, pie, &c. 



But it is rather to the peculiarities of these poisonings, 

 than to the general fact, that I would direct your atten- 

 tion. The first of these is the production of FEVER. Pe- 

 reira tells us, "that the symptoms produced by poisonous 

 fungi, are those of g astro-intestinal irritation, and a dis- 

 ordered state of the nervous system," a not inexact general 

 definition of a malarious fever. "In the human system 



