Toadstools, mushrooms, fungi, edible and poisonous; one thousand American fungi / How to select and cook the edible; how to distinguish and avoid the poisonous, with full botanic descriptions. Toadstool poisons and their treatment, instructions to students, recipes for cooking, etc., etc.

by Charles McIlvaine; Robert K. Macadam

TOADSTOOL POISONING AND ITS TREATMENT

By W.S. Carter, M.D.

Professor of Physiology and Hygiene, University of Texas, Galveston, Texas.

The poisonous mushrooms, or so-called toadstools, may be grouped in two classes: (1) Those containing minor or irritant poisons, which act locally on the gastro-intestinal tract, such as the Clitocybe illudens, Lepiota Morgani and others, and (2) those containing major poisons which act on the nerve centers after absorption, causing symptoms to appear a long time after the poison has been taken and very often terminating fatally. This group includes the Amanita muscaria, the Amanita bulbosa or Am. verna and the Amanita phalloides.

From the prompt way in which vomiting and purging begin after eating the toadstools of the first group there seems to be no doubt of the local irritant action on the alimentary canal. Grave symptoms from any constitutional effect or any serious disturbances of the circulation do not occur. Although intensely disagreeable, such poisoning terminates in recovery and may not be regarded as dangerous unless the poison be taken in enormous quantity or by one in poor health.

In poisoning by the deadly toxic Amanitæ vomiting and purging may also occur as prominent symptoms, but generally only occur late—ten to fifteen hours after eating the toadstool—and are due to the action of the poison on the nerve centers. This is clear from the fact that these symptoms appear when the poison is given either hypodermatically or intravenously to animals.

It is exceedingly unfortunate that these deadly poisonous toadstools do not give some warning either in an unpleasant taste or contain an irritant which would act locally to cause emesis and purgation, for in that case the patient would get rid of the poison before such large quantities were absorbed and fatal poisoning would be less frequent. They are not at all unpalatable and sometimes large quantities are eaten by mistake.

Formerly frequent allusion was made to the possibility of poisoning by decomposition products from putrefactive changes in mushrooms. Not a single case has come to the writer’s notice where this form of poisoning has actually occurred. In many reported cases of poisoning it is distinctly stated they were eaten soon after gathering; in none does the reporter mention any suspicion of poisoning of this nature.

At one time very many mushrooms were supposed to be poisonous. We now know that there are only a few dangerous ones, and where serious poisoning occurs it seems clearly to be due to some definite and constant poisons contained in certain fungi. We shall not deal here with the irritant poisons, as they are not dangerous and usually Nature gets rid of them easily, but shall consider the poisons of the Amanita muscaria or “Fly mushroom,” the A. bulbosus vernus Bull. or A. verna, and the A. phalloides or “death cup.” The writer has not had any personal experience with poisoning by these in man, but bases his observations upon over one hundred experiments made upon lower animals.[^[C]] This is a distinct advantage in reaching any conclusion, as the facts are definite without any doubt as to the kind or quantity of the poison taken. In many of the reports of poisoning by mushrooms in man no mention of the species is made. In all these cases many kinds have been mixed together in preparing them for the table and it has never been known how many of the poisonous and how many of the edible ones have been eaten by any one individual partaking of the dish. Of course the fluid in which they are cooked contains some of the poison. This explains why some patients recover after having eaten several mushrooms while others die from a part of one only. (See report of six cases by Dr. G.E. Caglieri, New York Med. Record, August 28, 1897; also Dr. Berry’s cases reported by Prentiss, Philadelphia Med. Journal, September 24, 1898.) Then, too, different poisonous species may be mixed together. The symptoms produced by the different Amanitæ poisons are quite different. Those containing irritant poisons may be taken with those containing deadly poisons. This accounts for the great variety of symptoms presented in cases reported.

[C]. All of the toadstools used have been very kindly furnished and identified by Capt. Chas. McIlvaine. Unfortunately only fifteen experiments could be made with the fresh fungi while the writer was at the University of Pennsylvania. Since leaving there it has been impossible to get any in a fresh state, and the other experiments have been made either with dried fungi or alcoholic or glycerine extracts of the fresh.