Ford and Clark: Properties of Poisonous Fungi 171 
Autopsies upon individuals killed by Amanita phalloides have 
been carried out by a number of observers but our knowledge of 
the lesions is by no means satisfactory. There is little to be found 
to account for the violent paroxysms of pain, vomiting, and diar- 
rhoea. Death seems to be due to the extreme fatty degeneration 
of the liver. The poisoning resembles most closely phosphorus 
poisoning (Ford 15 ). 
Poisonous constituents 
The first attempt to obtain the active principle or poison of 
Amanita phalloides is probably that of Letellier, 16 who in 1826 
obtained a heat-resistant substance from a number of fungi and to 
his investigations we owe the term amanitin. Many years sub- 
sequently he took up the work again in association with Speneux 17 
examining this time a fungus known as Hypophyllum crux meli- 
tense (Paulet) and probably a variety of Amanita phalloides. In 
this investigation two substances were found, one of an irritating 
nature, acting upon the mucous membranes of the alimentary 
canal, and the other heat-resistant substance characterized as a 
glucosidal alkaloid and identical with the amanitin of Letellier. 
In 1866 Boudier 18 made an elaborate chemical analysis of Aman- 
ita phalloides obtaining about a dozen different substances. He 
ascribed the poisonous action of the plant to an alkaloid but was 
never able to isolate such a substance although he gave it the name 
bulbosine. Later, in 1877, Ore 19 also concluded, on biological 
grounds alone, that Amanita phalloides must contain an alkaloid 
and he gave this hypothetical poison the name phalloidin. 
The observations of all these men are interesting now only his- 
torically as the names ascribed by these various investigators to 
the active principle of Amanita phalloides are no longer employed 
except occasionally in French literature. Modern knowledge of 
the properties of this plant dates from the work of Robert 20 who 
established the important fact that extracts of Amanita phalloides 
contain a substance which lakes or dissolves the blood corpus- 
cles of many animals and of man. There were certain serious ob- 
jections to regarding this substance as the active principle, espe- 
cially the fact that this blood-laking or hemolytic material is very 
easily destroyed by moderate heat, much less than is usually em- 
