80 THE POISONOUS 



It was then cured readily by the sulphate of quinia, and 

 other means approved for intermittents. 



In 1844, I busied myself with collecting and examin- 

 ing various species of fungi, most of them of a poisonous 

 quality. For several hours a day, I hung over these 

 specimens, watching the successive growths of fungus 

 superimposed on fungus, and endeavoring, with a micro- 

 scope, to measure the relative size of their spores and 

 nucleoli. Whilst thus engaged, I was, for the first and 

 only time since my early childhood, attacked by a tertian, 

 and was compelled to resort, after the third paroxysm, to 

 the usual treatment for an intermittent. Whether this 

 attack was the result of the slight vegetable decomposition, 

 or an effect of the inhalation of spores of invisible fungi, 

 I know not, but the coincidence was at least singular. 

 Th^at the latter supposition is the more probable one, is 

 sustained by the well-known fact, that after an evacuation 

 by an emetic or cathartic, of the poisonous fungi, no re- 

 medy is so valuable, as a corrective of the febrile and 

 other consequences, as the preparations of cinchona. 

 Merat and Lens, after describing cases of disease pro- 

 duced by fungi, remark, that preparations of the, barJc are 

 the best remedy. Confirmatory of this opinion is the 

 statement of Dr. King, of New York (New York Med. 

 and PJiys. Journ.^ 1825), that, in a case of ergotism, 

 wine and bark constituted the most effective remedial 

 agents. 



We thus, see, gentlemen, that when patients are slightly 

 affected by the fungi, symptoms arise which closely ally 

 the cases to those of common marsh fevers; and that the 

 resemblance is still farther improved by the discovery, 

 that both are to be most successfully treated by the anti- 

 periodics. 



