36 MANUAL OF POISONOUS PLANTS 



a toxalbumin is a glucoside. Prof. Ford has obtained an anti-poison or an 

 anti-hemolysin with a high grade of immunity. According to Schlesinger 

 and Ford ^ the Amanita-toxin in a purified state is one of the most powerful 

 of organic poisons — four tenths of one milligram killing a guinea pig within 

 twenty-four hours. Ford believes that the hemolysin plays no part in human 

 intoxication, but that the toxin is the active principal which resists the action 

 of -the gastric juice and boiling. He finds that the Amanita rubescens considered 

 an edible species by some, contains an hemolysin as powerful as the Deadly 

 Amanita. He found a toxin and an hemolysin in Amanita virosa. The latter 

 substance in a dilution of 1-200 killed a guinea pig. The A. spreta produced in- 

 toxication and according to Ford must be classified with the "deadly poisonous" 

 as the A. verna. 



The A. strobiliformis, A. chlorinosma, A. radicata, and A. porphyria, do 

 not contain hemolysins but small quantities of a toxin probably identical with 

 amanita-toxin. The Amanita solitaria, regarded as edible, causes the blood 

 corpuscles to adhere in clumps much as agglutination occurs with typhoid bacilli 

 when brought in contact with the blood of a typhoid patient. 



1 Jour. Biol. Chem. 3:279, 1909, 



