July 23, 1900] 



SCIENCE 



99 



plant. The extreme toxicity of this 

 species illustrates the dangerous conse- 

 quences which the admixture of two or 

 three specimena to a dish of edible mush- 

 rooms entail. 



Following the consumption of the fungi 

 there is a period of six to fifteen hours 

 during which no symptoms of poisoning 

 are shown by the victims. This corre- 

 sponds to the period of incubation of other 

 intoxications or infections. The first sign 

 of trouble is sudden pain of the greatest 

 intensity localized in the abdomen, accom- 

 panied by vomiting, thirst and choleraic 

 diarrha?a with mucous and bloody stools. 

 The latter symptom is by no means con- 

 stant. The pain continues in paroxysms 

 often so severe as to cause the peculiar 

 Hippocratic facies, "la face vulteuse" of 

 the French, and though sometimes amelio- 

 rated in character, it usi;ally recurs with 

 greater severity. The patients rapidly 

 lose strength and flesh, their complexion 

 assuming a peculiar yellow tone. After 

 three to four days in children and six to 

 eight in adults the victims sink into a pro- 

 found coma from which they can not be 

 roused and death soon ends the fearful 

 and useless tragedy. Convulsions rarely 

 if ever occur and when present indicate, I 

 am inclined to believe, a mixed intoxica- 

 tion, specimens of Amanita muscaria be- 

 ing eaten with the phallaides. The major- 

 ity of individuals poisoned by the "deadly 

 amanita" die, the mortality varying from 

 60 to 100 per cent, in various accidents, 

 but recovery is not impossible when small 

 amounts of the fungus are eaten, especially 

 if the stomach be very promptly emptied, 

 either naturally or artificially. 



There have been many cases of phal- 

 loides intoxication reported in Italy, 

 France, Germany and England, and fatal- 

 ities from this cause in Canada and the 

 United States are not uncommon. For 



several years I have collected newspaper 

 accounts of toadstool poisoning and I 

 should estimate that twelve to fifteen 

 deaths occur annually in this country from 

 this species alone. The most horrible of 

 all epidemics ever reported occurred in 

 France at the Orphanage of St. Louis 

 near Pont de la Maye, Gironde, where 

 eleven children died from one meal of 

 Amanita phalloides gathered by the igno- 

 rant attendants. 



TOXICOLOGY OF AMANITA PHALLOIDES 



With the earlier investigations of Letel- 

 lier,'" published in 1826, probably the first 

 work of a chemical nature upon fungi, of 

 Letellier and Speneux," of Bourdier,'^ of 

 Ore,'^ French mycologists to whom v:e 

 owe the names Amxmitin, Bidbosine and 

 Phalloidin, we need no longer concern 

 ourselves, not because these men did not 

 have in hand the active principle of 

 Amanita phalloides at some time or other, 

 but because the fungi employed by them 

 embraced a number of species and in- 

 cluded in all probability Amanita mus- 

 caria. Lluscarine indeed seems to have been 

 present in many of the poisonous extracts 

 which they tested. 



Our consideration of the properties of 

 this fungus really must begin with the 

 work of Kobert^* who was the first to 

 study Amanita phalloides in any painsta- 

 king manner. From carefully selected 

 specimens of this species he obtained by 

 alcohol precipitation a substance which 



'"Letellier, "These de Paris," 1826. 



" Letellier and Speneux, Annates d'hyg. pub. et 

 de med. leg., p. 71, 1867. 



" Boudier, " Dea champignons au point de vue 

 de leurs caraetferes usuels, chimiques et toxicolo- 

 giques," 1866. 



"Org, Arch, de physiol. norm, et path. (II.), 

 XI., p. 274, 1877. 



"Kobert, St. Petershurger med. Wochenschr., 

 XVI., pp. 463, 471, 1891. 



