Clark-Kantor : Toxicological Experiments with Fungi 177 



by Amanita phalloides are distinct from those seen in the case of 

 Amanita muscaria, since the latter apparently causes death by its 

 action upon the nervous system. These effects are more serious 

 than any caused by the blood-destroying substances found in so 

 many mushrooms. Fortunately, however, the latter are not so im- 

 portant, owing to the ease with which they are destroyed by heat 

 and the digestive juices. Autopsies after fatal Amanita phalloides 

 poisoning of people and animals show that most of the internal 

 organs are congested, hemorrhagic, and very seriously affected 

 with necrosis and degeneration. In serious cases death intervenes 

 in a few days, while muscarin poisoning develops in a few hours 

 and runs rapidly to death or complete recovery in a short time. 

 There is no antidote for poisoning by the so-called "amanita- 

 toxin " of Amanita phalloides, nor is a rapid recovery to be ex- 

 pected, in view of the grave lesions it causes. As in the case of 

 muscarin, the " amanita-toxin " is not destroyed by cooking. The 

 blood-laking poisons of this same fungus are destroyed by heat 

 and so probably they are always without effect unless the fungus 

 is eaten in the raw state. Schlesinger and Ford* purified the 

 <( amanita-toxin " by rigorous chemical methods and obtained final 

 products showing all the characteristic effects of the plant extracts 

 which had been heated to destroy blood-laking substances. They 

 found that the " amanita-toxin " did not seem to belong to the 

 ordinary classes of the powerful poisons, such as the toxalbumins, 

 alkaloids, etc. 



Very recently Fordf has reported that in Inocybe infelix he 

 found a peculiar poison that resisted heat and drying. In animals 

 it did not produce the effects of muscarin, " amanita-toxin," or of 

 any known mushroom poison. The symptoms came on at once 

 and by their nature seemed to indicate the action of some powerful 

 narcotic poison upon the nervous system. The most striking 

 symptoms were extreme drowsiness, forcible retraction of the 

 head (in rabbits), and complete paralysis lasting several hours. 

 The smaller animals died but the larger ones recovered com- 

 pletely in a few hours. All of these observations seemed to indi- 



* Schlesinger and Ford: On the chemical properties of Amanita-toxin. 

 Jour. Biol. Chem., 1907, iii, p. 279. 

 t Ford : see footnote, page 176. 



