368 



GARDENING FOR THE SOUTH. 



The poisonous principle of the death cup is known as 

 phallin, and is of the same character as the violent 

 poisons found in rattlesnakes and some other animals: 



" The fundamental injury is not due, as in the case of 

 muscarine, to a paralysis of the nerves controlling the 

 action of the heart, but to a direct effect on the blood 

 corpuscles. These are quickly dissolved by phallin, the 

 blood serum escaping from the blood vessels into the 



alimentary canal, 

 and the whole sys- 





^ 





tem being rapidly 

 drained of its vital- 

 ity. No bad taste 

 warns the victim, 

 nor do the prelimi- 

 nary symptoms be- 

 gin 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 diarrhea, the 

 intestinal discharges assuming the 'rice-water' condition 

 characteristic of cholera. The latter symptoms are per- 

 sistently maintained, generally without loss of conscious- 

 ness, until death ensues in from two to four days. 



" There is no known antidote by which the effects of 



Fig. 134 — Fly amanita, Amanita muscaria 

 (after Coville). Top view. Poisonous. 

 Two-fifths natural size. 



