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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXX. No. 760 



had the remarkable property of dissolving 

 red blood corpuscles, a substance known 

 as an hemolysin; and which he named 

 phcllin. Very minute traces of this sub- 

 stance brought in contact with the red- 

 blood cells of man or with those of many 

 species of animals, produced within a 

 short space of time, fifteen minutes to one 

 or two hours, a complete solution of these 

 corpuscles— a laking of the blood. So 

 powerful was this hemolytic action that 

 even in a dilution of 1-125,000 it was still 

 operative upon the red cells of ox blood. 

 This peculiar phenomenon was so striking 

 that Kobert's attention was naturally 

 riveted upon the substance producing it, 

 since it corresponds so closely to helvellic 

 acid, the first hemolytic substance de- 

 scribed in fungi, and the active principle 

 of the poisonous helvellas. The fact that 

 phallin was precipitated by ethyl alcohol, 

 resisted dialysis, etc., and that his extracts 

 contained a little coagulable proteid, led 

 Kobert to characterize it as a toxalbumin, 

 a name now largely employed by serumol- 

 ogists to indicate a complex poison either 

 itself proteid or so closely bound to pro- 

 teid, that it must be regarded as proteid 

 or albumin in its chemical nature. De- 

 spite certain peculiarities in the behavior 

 of phallin which militated strongly against 

 its acceptance as the active principle of 

 Amanita phalloides, especially the destruc- 

 tion of the substance at 70° C, that is, much 

 below the boiling point, Kobert concluded 

 that it was the essential poison of this 

 fungus and stated that the clinical symp- 

 toms and the post-mortem changes could 

 be explained by its action. The publica- 

 tion of Kobert that Amanita phalloides 

 owed its toxicity to a powerful blood-dis- 

 solving substance which, absorbed through 

 the walls of the stomach circulated in the 

 blood plasma, destroying the blood cor- 

 puscle as they met it, was a peculiarly en- 



ticing explanation for the mysterious 

 phenomena induced by this most powerful 

 of all poisonous fungi, and his explana- 

 tion was universally accepted, especially 

 in popular treatises on mycology. Ko- 

 bert,^^ however, continued his study of 

 specimens of Amanita phalloides and a 

 few years later announced that the blood- 

 laking principle phallin was occasionally 

 absent from' specimens of this species, but 

 that all typical forms contained an alcohol- 

 soluble poison, which killed animals in 

 small doses but did not produce the typ- 

 ical lesions seen in man. This second sub- 

 stance Kobert believed to be a poisonous 

 alkaloid, but gave no satisfactory reason 

 for his characterization of this poison as 

 such. 



The second communication of Kobert's 

 had little or no circulation and was never 

 known, I believe, to the majority of my- 

 cologists. Personally I was quite ignorant 

 of its existence for some time after I be- 

 gan investigations in this field. During 

 the summer of 1903, now six years ago, I 

 collected a considerable number of speci- 

 mens of Amanita phalloides in Blowing 

 Rock, N. C, only the plants corresponding 

 closely to the classic descriptions and 

 which could be regarded as typical being 

 accepted. During the following winter a 

 careful study of these fungi was instituted. 

 The thoroughly dried material was ex- 

 tracted with distilled water, the extract 

 passed through a Berkefeld filter, and its 

 action studied upon all varieties of blood 

 corpuscles, and upon animals. Subse- 

 quently during the summer of 1904 and 

 1905 I collected in the Blue Ridge Moun- 

 tains of Maryland and a year later in 

 Woods Holl, Mass. The following season 



" "Sitzungsberichte der naturforschenden G*- 

 sellscheft zu Rostock," p. 26, 1899, Anhang to the 

 Arcliiv des Vereins der Freunde der Naturge- 

 schichte in Mecklenberg, III., 1899, II. Abtheil- 

 hung. 



