THE DEADLY AMANITA 



59 



known to the ancients. From the earHest times its 

 deeds of notoriety are on record. 



This is quite possibly the species alluded to by 

 Pliny as "very conveniently adapted for poisoning," 

 and is not improbably the mushroom 

 Historical referred to by this historian in the fol- 

 Amanita lowing quotation from his famous Nat- 

 ural His toiy. " Mushrooms are a dainty 

 food, but deservedly held in disesteem since the no- 

 torious crime committed by Agrippina, who through 

 their agency poisoned her husband, the Emperor 

 Claudius; and at the same moment, in the person 

 of her son Nero, inflicted another poisonous curse 

 upon the whole world, herself in particular." 



Notwithstanding its fatal character, this mushroom, 

 it is said, is habitually eaten by certain peoples, to 

 whom the poison simply acts as an intoxicant. In- 

 deed, it is customarily thus employed as a narcotic 

 and an exhilarant in Kamchatka and Asiatic Russia 

 generally, where the Amanita drunkard 

 Amanita supplants the opium fiend and alcohol 

 dipsomaniacs dipsomaniac of other countries. Its 

 narcotizing qualities are commemo- 

 rated by Cooke in his Seven Sisters of Sleep, wherein 

 may be found a full description of the toxic employ- 

 ment of the fungus. 



The writer has heard it claimed that this species 

 of Amanita has been eaten with impunity by certain 

 individuals ; but the information has usually come 

 from sources which warrant the belief that another 

 harmless species has been confounded with it. The 

 warning of my Frontispiece may safely be extended 



