Poisoned Bread. —Bread has been poisoned by :— (1) The intro¬ 
duction of the grain of our only poisonous grass, darnel ( Lolium 
temulentum). (2) Rye bread on the continent, by the introduction of 
the fungus ergot of rye ( Secale cornu turn), which develops on grain 
grown in wet seasons. (3) The flower from seeds of Txttlnjrns cicera 
and Kn-um or ilia (bitter vetch) in some places added to bread ; where 
more than one-twelfth part of it is used, it becomes highly dangerous. 
(4) Mould. Sometimes mould grows spontaneously on bread ( Peni - 
cillinm roscnm and P. glaucinn), the former being a red and the latter 
a green mould. Such bread, according to Taylor, is highly dangerous, 
and may actually cause death, the red forms being the worst. 
Fungi. —Everyone or nearly everyone eats mushrooms—mushrooms 
being poisonous must be referred to—we do not mean to say that the 
toothsome morsels one buys are bad, but that they may he for all the 
average person is able to tell us. In a paper like this there is only 
room to refer to a few species which have caused death or serious 
results. 
The Common Mushroom (Agancua campestris ) when decayed has 
caused poisoning, and in one case a woman died within twenty hours 
after eating them. 
The Morel ( Hecella aexculenta) has caused serious illness, a case is 
recorded where six persons were poisoned by partaking of them. 
The Yellow Coloured ( Amanita citrina ) has also caused death. 
Most fungi growing under trees are dangerous, and a case is mentioned 
of a boy eating two fungi (sp. ?) from under a tree and dying 
within 44 hours. A. pantharina and A. muscaria have both caused 
death and serious illness. Agaricus plialloides , which has no un¬ 
pleasant smell when fresh, is one of the most dangerous. The 
common truffle ( Murchella csculenta), so often found in turkeys and 
other like places, has given rise to severe symptoms of irritant 
poisoning. 
It is a curious fact that the poisonous properties of mushrooms 
vary with climate, and probably with the season of the year when 
gathered. Some persons also are liable to be seriously affected, even 
by species generally regarded as wholesome (just as shell-fish affect 
persons differently). Our common mushroom is regarded as 
poisonous in Italy, whilst many of our poisonous species are eaten 
with relish in Russia. According to Guy and Ferrier, there are few, if 
any, edible fungi which ordinary people can be trusted to distinguish 
from poisonous ones. Even when two kinds are contrasted in plates 
faithfully drawn and coloured, some care is needed to distinguish 
one or two species from others which resemble them. Nor can the 
general rules which have been laid down by our worthy grandmothers 
for the detection of bad species be relied upon. Their silver spoons 
were (and are) all very well on a table, but quite useless as a test. 
Colour is quite indecisive, and some of the most dangerous are void of 
any unpleasant smell when fresh, though the most wholesome may be 
offensive when old. We shall be on the safe side, however, in 
rejecting all that have an offensive or repulsive odour and those which 
present a bitter taste, burning and parching of the throat, those, too, 
which have a livid hue and assume various colours when broken or 
bruised. Experience is the only safe test, and no one should try 
species incautiously, with whose character they are not thoroughly 
