Ford and Clark: Properties of Poisonous Fungi 187 
of diet. There is no general cook-book test to distinguish the 
dangerous fungi from the edible ones. The habits and appearance 
of the poisonous species must be studied until one may recog- 
nize them with the same ease and certainty as any of the common 
plants of our gardens. Neglect of this precaution in gathering 
mushrooms for the table will sooner or later cause a typical attack 
of poisoning, and in such cases it should be remembered that the 
mortality is often as high as in any of the most fatal diseases. The 
rapidly increasing number of deaths in this country from mush- 
room poisoning shows that some effort must be made to dissem- 
inate exact information about the dangerous species in order to 
prevent unnecessary suffering and death. 
There is a tradition in this country and Europe that treating 
Amanita muscaria (Coville 57 ) with vinegar and salt water re- 
moves the poisonous constituents. This treatment if repeated sev- 
eral times would probably remove muscarin and similar substances 
but the danger from incomplete extraction of the poison is still 
too great to recommend its use. In the case of Amanita phal- 
loides, Radais and Sartory 5S have shown that such treatments do 
not reduce the toxicity of the fungus in spite of popular belief 
to the contrary. There is little doubt that in some countries 
people habitually eat Amanita muscaria in small quantities, both 
treated and untreated, with no apparent signs of poisoning, but 
this does not warrant us in ever allowing ourselves to experiment 
upon the edibility of such poisonous fungi. Generally, in this 
country, no one eats Amanita muscaria because of its well known 
dangers. In some of our investigations (Clark and Smith 11 ) on 
American specimens of this plant from different localities we 
found apparently great differences in toxicity, possibly due to 
local variation. Furthermore, under certain conditions, heat may 
destroy the poisons in Amanita muscaria as reported by Ford 42 
and others, but neither does this observation warrant us in con- 
cluding that the dangers from eating this fungus are overestimated. 
The first necessary prophylactic measure is to impress upon 
mushroom lovers that there is no easy empirical test to distinguish 
between the edible and poisonous fungi. No one should eat an 
unfamiliar mushroom until it has been identified as a harmless 
species by a well-trained mycologist. It is not difficult to learn 
