178 
Mycologia 
vagus nerve. Atropin by its depressing action upon the same 
nerves which muscarin stimulates, is a. perfect physiological anti- 
dote for the muscarin found in Amanita muscaria and also for 
synthetic muscarin which may be prepared by the oxidation of 
cholin. Its use, therefore, was at once suggested in Amanita 
muscaria poisoning. 
The work of Schmiedeberg and Koppe upon Amanita muscaria 
was not accepted at once, nor did it fail to arouse considerable 
opposition. The cases of poisoning by this fungus presented such 
varied symptoms that it did not seem possible that they could all 
be referred to the one substance muscarin and this was particu- 
larly true in regard to the Siberian Amanita muscaria. It was 
soon shown by Schmiedeberg , 30 however, that the Russian fly 
amanitas had the same action upon animals as the European type 
and he was able to isolate muscarin from them. In addition to 
muscarin, however, Schmiedeberg 31 found later in this fungus evi- 
dences of another substance differing from muscarin in producing 
a dilatation of the pupils, thus acting like atropin. This second 
substance Schmiedeberg called muscaridin, and he believed that 
its presence in Amanita muscaria in greater or less amount would 
modify the action of the muscarin and thus the differences in in- 
tensity of the symptoms in Amanita muscaria poisoning would be 
explained. Muscaridin was later named “ pilz-atropin ” by Ro- 
bert 32 who states that it can be separated from commercial mus- 
carin by its solubility in ether. It has, however, never been iso- 
lated from fresh Amanita muscaria plants. Finally, Kunkel 33 and 
other authorities maintain that the differences shown by the var- 
ious cases of Amanita muscaria intoxication are due to the pres- 
ence in the plant, in addition to muscarin, of a mixture of chem- 
ically related substances having entirely different pharmacological 
effects. This would account for the fact that atropin does not 
wholly neutralize the toxic action of Amanita muscaria upon 
animals despite the fact that it is a perfect physiological antidote 
for muscarin itself. This led Harmsen 34 to take up the question 
again and he has recently been able to show that extracts of 
Amanita muscaria are twice as toxic weight for weight as pure 
muscarin, and contain a poison which produces in animals long 
continued convulsions with a fatal outcome, this effect not being 
