242 MANUAL OF POISONOUS PLANTS 



Later this author* found what he thought was a poisonous alkaloid, "that 

 all typical forms contained an alcohol soluble poison;" that phallin was 

 occasionally absent. 



Ford found that the extract of the fungus is a powerful hemolytic agent 

 and quickly destroys the erythrocytes of guinea pig, fowl, pigeon, dog, goat, 

 and man. This takes place at 37 degrees C, slower at lower temperatures. 

 The corpuscles of sheep, beef, and swine are resistent. Raw and boiled milk 

 act as an antidote — they are antihemolysins. Animals may be immunized by 

 using non-lethal doses. 



Since the above has been written there have come to hand several recent 

 papers by Dr. W. W. Ford,' who states that he found muscarin in several 

 "yellow Amanitas" found in New York and Massachusetts. The aqueous ex- 

 tract of Amanita muscaria first agglutinated and then slowly dissolved blood 

 corpuscles. The agglutinin was heat resistant. The extracts produced hemolysis. 

 The agglutinin is a glucoside. The Amanita solitaria also contains an agglutinin. 

 The Amanita frostiana ^ contains a moderately hemolytic substance and free 

 from resistant toxin and muscarin. By the same author the poisonous nature of 

 a number of species is reported as follows. The A. phalloides produces 

 a chronic intoxication in guinea pig, the animal dying in twenty-five days. Ihe 

 lesion is typical for amanita toxin. It is hemolytic for rabbit's corpuscles,] in 

 a dilution of 1-20. The poison from A. virosa has a hemolytic strength of 1-200 

 in two hours and in dilution 1-100 at the end of 24 hours, and when heated to 

 60° C. Kills guinea pigs in twenty-four hours, with signs of acute intoxication. 

 The A. spreta contains hemolysin and toxin but in rather a low degree. It 

 should be classed with the deadly poisonous mushrooms. The A. porphyria, A. 

 strobiliformis, A. radicata and A. chlorinosma are all poisonous and contain a 

 heat resistant substance which induces in animals a chronic intoxication; the A. 

 vittadini and A. rubescens should also be included according to Kobert.3 



Dr. Ford in speaking of the poison in A. phalloides says : 



"In a series of investigations published from the John Hopkins University it has now 

 been shown that Amanita phalloides contain two poisons which for the sake of clearness 

 we speak of as the amanita-toxin.4 The hemolysin is probably the same hemolytic substance 

 which Kobert had in his preparation of phallin and the toxin is possibly identical with 

 Robert's second poison. The hemolysin was found in every specimen of Amanita phalloides 

 which has thus far been examined, and when obtained from the fresh plant is the most 

 powerful hemolysin of vegetable origin known. Drs. Abel and Ford 5 have shown that all 

 coagulable proteid can be removed from this substance by uranyl acetate in alkaline solutions 

 and by freshly prepared metaphosphoric acid, and when thus freed from proteid it continues 

 to act upon blood corpuscles and gives the reaction of a glucoside containing a pentose. We 

 have recently 6 developed a method for the isolation and purification of this glucoside which 

 has an activity of 1-300,000 in the pure state. Since its sensitiveness to heat and the di- 

 gestive ferments the hemolysin is precluded from playing any important role in human intoxi- 

 cation. We are inclined to believe that the amanita-toxin is the active principle, and 

 Schlesinger and 1 7 have shown that this poison can be isolated by certain well-defined 

 methods. It also is one of the powerful organic poisons, four-tenths of a milligram killing 



* Sitzungsb. Naturforschenden Gesellsch Rostock 1899:26. Statement from Prof. Ford. 



1 The distribution of Poisons in Amanitas. The Jour, of Pharma. and Ept. Therapeutics. 

 1:275-284. , _, , 



Notes on the Amanita-Toxin, Ford and Prouty. The Jour, of Pharm. and Expt. 

 Therapeutics. 1:389. 



2 Jour. Inf. Dis. 4:437. 



3 Lehrbuch des. Intoxikationen. Ed. 2. 617. 



4 Ford. Jour. Fjcpt. Med. 8:437, May 26, 1906. 



5 Abel and Ford: Jour. Biol. Chem. 11:273, Jan. 1907. 



6 Abel and Ford: Arch. f. Exp. Path. u. Pharmakol. Supplement-Band Schraeideberg 

 Festschrift, 1908. 



7 Schlesinger and Ford: Jour. Biol. Chem. 3:279, Sept.. 1907. 



