213 



Roch* says that Amanita muscaria does not deserve its bad 

 reputation and states emphatically that it does not kill. He 

 recalls the fact that in Russia it is eaten freely if the cap is peeled 

 and the mushroom soaked in acidulated water. In Siberia also 

 the natives use the poison of Amanita muscaria in religious 

 ceremonies to produce cerebral intoxication, excitement and 

 ecstasy. He points to the fact that the poison is eliminated from 

 the body by the kidneys with great rapidity and that in order to 

 continue this cerebral debauch the dose is frequently repeated by 

 drinking the excretion. Evidently there is something very de- 

 sirable and nothing very dangerous about this drunkenness from 

 A. muscaria or whatever alkaloid it may be that is contained in 

 Amanita muscaria. The lesser symptoms are like a real alco- 

 holic or cocaine intoxication; excited heart action, dizziness, 

 laughing and crying, a desire to jump and dance, to run and sing, 

 the devotees of muscarine (or as Roch calls it "pilz-atropin") 

 are perfectly happy, they are in high spirits, experience religious 

 ecstasy and this is all increased by ocular hallucination, in which 

 distances are greatly increased, and size is distorted. They also 

 have delightful visions of singing birds, palaces and beautiful 

 landscapes. These symptoms remind one of the effect from 

 hasheesh or Indian hemp as well as the effects of Panaeolus 

 poisoning mentioned earlier in my paper. 



Roch claims these symptoms are due to nevrine or pilz-atro- 

 pin. He denies that muscarine can produce any such cerebral 

 stimulation, claiming that muscarine in non-poisonous doses 

 produces increased saliva, sweating, diarrhoea or colic, and con- 

 traction of the pupil, while in the poisoning from this class of 

 mushroom we have added to the gastro-intestinal irritation pro- 

 duced by the muscarine or choline a wholly new group of symp- 

 toms produced by a substance he calls fungus atropine or pilz- 

 atropin. When this particular effect upon the brain and. nerves 

 is more violent and serious the symptoms narrated above disap- 

 pear and there sets in headache, fixed hallucinations, delirium, 

 convulsions, loss of sensation, stupor, coma and perhaps death. 



Roch states, however, that to meet death in this class the 



* L. c, p. 63. 



