POISONOUS FUNGI AND OTHER SPORE-BEARING PLANTS 37 



rapidly drained of its vitality. No bad taste warns the victim, nor do 

 the preliminary symptoms begin until nine to fourteen hours after the 

 poisonous mushrooms are eaten. There is then considerable abdominal 

 pain and there may be cramps in the legs and other nervous phenomena, 

 such as convulsions, and even lockjaw or other kinds of tetanic spasms. 

 The pulse is weak, the abdominal pain is rapidly followed by nausea, 

 vomiting, and extreme diarrhoea, the intestinal discharges assuming the 

 "rice-water" condition characteristic of cholera. The latter symptoms 

 are persistently maintained, generally without loss of consciousness, until 

 death ensues, which happens in from two to four days." There is no 

 known antidote by which the effects of phallin can be counteracted, but 

 the experiments immunizing rabbits against this poison suggest profitable 

 lines of experimentation in which man may be ultimately immunized. 



Helvellic Acid. Helvellic acid from Helvetia esculenta has the empiric 

 formula C^H^oO;. It is deadly poison soluble in hot water, so that if 

 the fungus is boiled in water and the water thrown away, the toadstool 

 becomes harmless. Helvellic acid, if intravenously injected, produces 

 hemoglobinuria and icterus with hemoglobulin infarcts in the kidneys. 

 The symptoms of poisonous by this substance resemble in a marked 

 degree those of the deadly phallin, the dissolution of the red corpuscles 

 of the blood being one of the most marked and most dangerous. This is 

 accompanied by nausea, vomiting, jaundice and stoppage of the kidneys. 

 No antidote is known for helvellic acid. 



General Considerations. Mushrooms may be injurious to man even 

 if poisonous varieties are not eaten by habits of gluttony and gorman- 

 dizing, where large quantities of food are ingested. There is the greatest 

 difference with regard to the digestibility of such fleshy fungi. Some can 

 digest them readily, others find considerable difficulty. When not pro- 

 perly digested by ferment action deleterious products may be formed in 

 the gastro-intestinal tract. Spoiled fleshy fungi may through the action 

 of bacteria develop a ptomaine called cholin C2H 4 OHN (CHs^OH, 

 which becomes an active poison when oxidized. 



Groups of Poisonous Fungi (Roch's Classification. As this chapter 

 has dealt with the fleshy fungi and as questions of poisoning by them is of 

 general interest, the classification of the Dr. Roch from the clinical stand- 

 point, as given in a paper by Beaman Douglass summarizing his work, will 

 be found useful in elucidating the matter. Dr. Roch has made six groups. 



Group i. Fungus exciting Action of Muscle Fiber. Ergot of rye, 

 Clamceps purpurea, which causes strong contraction of the muscles 



