16 



in the legs and other nervous phenomena, such as convulsions and even 

 lockjaw. In a few cases there are tetanic spasms. The pulse is weak 

 and either quick or slow in its action. The pupils of the eyes are 

 sometimes dilated. The abdominal pain is rapidly followed by nausea, 

 vomiting, and extreme diarrhea, the alvine discharges assuming the 

 peculiar "rice water" condition characteristic of cholera. The latter 

 symptoms are persistently maintained, generally without loss of con- 

 sciousness, until death ensues, as it does in from two to four days. 



Remedies. — Salt water is commonly used in the preparation of fungi 

 for food and some pretense at cooking is generally observed. Such a 

 treatment if thorough would remove the poisonous quality of the 

 death cup, but the uncertainty of an adequate treatment is so great 

 that the plant should be wholly rejected as a food. The danger is 

 greater from the fact that there is no known antidote to phallin. In 

 cases of poisoning by the death cup the undigested material, if not 

 already vomited, must be removed from the stomach, and also from the 

 alimentary canal. The same drugs recommended for fly fungus poison- 

 ing should be used where the symptoms seem to indicate the presence 

 of muscarine or muscarine-like substances. As a last resort against 

 the effects of the phallin, the blood should be transfused with a solu- 

 tion of common salt or with blood taken fresh from the veins of some 

 warm-blooded animal. This can, of course, be attempted only by a 

 well-skilled physician. 



The vernal amanita or destroying angel, Amanita verna Bulliard, is 

 regarded by some experts as identical with the death cup. It has the 

 same poisonous action. 



BUNCH-FLOWER FAMILY (MELANTHACEAE). 



AMERICAN FALSE HELLEBORE. 

 Veratrum viride Ait. 



Other names : American white hellebore : white hellebore; false helle- 

 bore; swam}) hellebore; Indian poke; meadow poke; poke root (in 

 N. H.); Indian uncus; puppet root; earth gall; crow poison; devil's 

 bite; duckretter; itch weed: bugbane; wolfsbane; bear corn. (Fig. 3.) 



Description and habitat. — A stout, herbaceous, simple-stemmed peren- 

 nial, 2 to 7 feet high, with a fleshy root 1 to 3 inches long, large plaited 

 stemless leaves of varying size, and a large, loose terminal cluster of 

 yellowish-green flowers which blossom from May to July. The plant 

 is native to the United States, where it grows abundantly in wet 

 meadows and along mountain brooks throughout New England; south- 

 ward in cold localities through Xew York and Delaware to Virginia, 

 and in the Alleghany Mountains to Georgia; westward in northern Wis- 

 consin, the mountains of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, and in 

 Alaska. 



Poisonous constituents. — Chemical analysis shows that five or six alka- 



