On Mushroom Eating 



i8 7 



beforehand nor explained when revealed, which cause sus- 

 ceptibilities from which the majority of persons are free. 

 Thus a person having an idiosyncrasy as regards them might 

 be poisoned by agarics which others might eat with impunity. 

 Seldom, or perhaps never, does such idiosyncrasy result in 

 fatal consequences, and it is obvious that its subjects must, 

 after some disagreeable experience, become aware of it. It is 

 quite possible, however, that it may vary at different periods 

 of life, and under varying conditions of health, and also as 

 regards the cooking of the fungi and quantity taken. It 

 may be assumed that very many cases of more or less 

 severe disagreement from eating wholesome fungi occur in 

 connection with personal idiosyncrasy, but it is not probable 

 that there are any deaths. Periera relates, indeed, as an 

 illustration of the fact that the poisonous effects of fungi 

 depend much upon the constitution of the eater, that a 

 French officer and his wife " died in consequence of break- 

 fasting off some poisonous agarics which were, nevertheless, 

 eaten by other persons in the house with impunity." It 

 may be suggested, however, that it is exceedingly improb- 

 able that both husband and wife should be the subjects of 

 a similar constitutional peculiarity in so extreme a form, and 

 the facts would be more probably explained by supposing 

 that some really poisonous fungi had got mixed with whole- 

 some ones, and that the unfortunate couple alone partook of 

 the former. 



In connection with idiosyncrasies and the disagreements 

 caused by non-poisonous mushrooms, it is very desirable to 

 draw attention to the fact that their immediate effects are 

 not their only ones. It is too much the habit to expect that 

 if an article of food disagrees, it will do so at once, and that 

 sickness, pain, &c, may be expected within a few hours. In 

 the case of the poisonous fungi this is usually, though by no 

 means invariably, the case, whilst in that of those supposed 

 to be wholesome it is decidedly exceptional. In the latter an 

 interval of one or two days often occurs during which there is 



