168 
Mycologia 
It is also well known that the ancient Babylonians and the early 
Romans employed mushrooms in great quantity both as delicacies 
for the rich and as daily food for the poorer classes. 
In early times, knowledge of the properties of fungi must have 
been gained entirely from experience and tbe accurate training 
of the peoples of the old world in the distinctions between the 
poisonous and harmless varieties could only have been obtained 
from many accidents. How common mushroom poisoning actu- 
ally was, however, is not known to us. It must have been fairly 
frequent since the deaths of several notables from this cause 
have been recorded in history, not as occurring from some unex- 
plained phenomenon but from accidents of a nature well-recog- 
nized by their contemporaries. Of such victims may be mentioned 
the family of the Greek poet Euripides, including his wife, two 
sons, and a daughter ; Pope Clement VII ; Emperor Jovian ; Em- 
peror Charles VI ; Emperor Claudius ; and a number of others. 2 
Coming down to more modern times our first definite knowledge 
of the number of fatalities from mushrooms came from Paulet 1 
who states that from the year 1749 to 1788 there were a hundred 
deaths in the environs of Paris alone. About the time of Paulet, 
Bulliard, 3 the celebrated French mycologist, began to systematize 
the knowledge of fungi possessed by men of his generation, estab- 
lished the various species upon firm ground, gave accurate descrip- 
tions of their botanical characters, and pointed out their physiolog- 
ical properties. Indeed, many of the species of the present day 
were established by this tireless French mycologist. 
More recently, our knowledge of the extent to which mushroom 
fatalities may occur in France has been augmented by the publica- 
tions of Bardy 4 who reported 60 cases in that district known as 
Les Vosges, and of Guillaud 5 who estimated the number of deaths 
in the southwest of France at about 100 annually. Falck 6 has also 
reported 53 cases in Germany with 40 deaths, and at the same time 
Inoko 7 in Japan has reported over 480 cases of mushroom intoxica- 
tion in eight years. In this country Palmer, 8 of Boston, collected 
33 cases with 21 deaths and Forster, 9 of Charlestown, 44 cases with 
14 fatalities. Finally, in 1900 Gillot 10 found over 200 authentic 
cases of mushroom poisoning mostly in France and Ford, 2 a few 
years later, added nearly as many more found in the German, 
