76 DEATH OF HORSES FROM OATS AFFECTED WITH FUNGI. 
found on bread, also in the inside of casks; and there is 
reason to believe its spores poisonous, for two coopers who 
entered a great tun, covered with this mould, to clean it, 
inhaled them, and were seized with violent pains in the head, 
giddiness, and vomiting, which only yielded to severe medical 
treatment.” 
. * * a , 
Considerations suggested by the foregoing facts and 
observations. 
1st. No mineral poison was discovered in the oats by 
chemical analysis. 
2nd. The oats were extensively contaminated by a mould¬ 
like fungus. 
3rd. It is known, on good authority, that many mould¬ 
like fungi are poisonous to animals. 
4th. The infected oats were given by Professor Varnell 
and others to several horses, and the animals sub¬ 
sequently died. 
Now, without stating positively that the infected oats 
poisoned the animals that eat them) I think we may safely 
infer from the facts referred to in this report alone, that in 
all probability they were the cause of their death. 
Since writing the above I have had an opportunity of 
showing the drawings of the fungi to Mr. Jabez Hogg, 
whose intimate acquaintance with microscopic subjects is 
well known. Mr. Hogg at once identified the fungi, por¬ 
trayed in Fig. TV as a variety of aspersgillus. 
It will also be interesting and satisfactory to state, that 
this gentleman had no hesitation in saying that the horses 
w r ere killed by the fungus attacking the oats; for he knew of 
many instances in which sickness and death had been occa¬ 
sioned in various animals by the very same species. 
With this report before us we may now inquire how far the 
symptoms, observed in these cases, agree with those of poi¬ 
soning by vegetable fungi, as noticed in the human subject; for 
we have no veterinary data which can assist us in coming to a 
right conclusion on such a point. On referring to Taylor, 
f On Poisons, 5 p. 768, I find that the following symptoms— 
produced in the human subject from partaking of poisonous 
fungi—are the most prominent; viz., giddiness, dimness of 
sight, debility, stupor, and injection of the visible mucous 
membrane, the stupor being in many instances followed by ir¬ 
ritation of the intestinal canal and with vomiting and purging. 
