The symptoms of muscarin poisoning, apart from vomiting and purging, are slowing of the pulse, cerebral disturbance, contraction of the pupils, salivation and sweating. In case of death, which is caused by suffocation or a suspension of heart action, the lungs are found to be filled with air, and there is a transfusion of blood in the alimentary canal.
Prof. R. Kobert, in a lecture delivered before the University of Dorpat in 1891, states that muscarin is found equally in the Fly mushroom (A. muscaria), the Panther mushroom (A. pantherinus), Boletus luridus, and in varying quantities in Russula emetica. He states also that though highly poisonous to vertebrates, muscarin is not so to flies, and that the noxious principle in A. muscaria which kills the flies is not as yet determined.
It has been shown that the lower animals, such as sheep and geese, as well as man, have been severely poisoned by feeding on the "Fly mushroom," and that in the case of the horse, experiments have demonstrated that even 0.04 of a gramme, 0.62 of a grain, have caused marked symptoms of poisoning.
For muscarin as for neurin poisoning the antidote is atropin administered internally or by subcutaneous injection.
Phallin.
The toxic alkaloid of Amanita phalloides Fries (Amanita bulbosa) was examined by Boudier, who named it "bulbosin," and by Oré, who named it "phalloidin," but their examinations, it is claimed, proved little beyond the fact that it seemed to be in the nature of an alkaloid, identical neither with muscarin nor helvellic acid.
Oré affirmed that the phalloidin of the Amanita phalloides was very nearly related to, and perhaps identical with, strychnine. From this view Kobert and others dissent.
The poisonous principle of Amanita phalloides has recently been subjected to very careful analysis by Prof. Kobert. As a result of a large number of experiments and post-mortem examinations held on persons poisoned by A. phalloides, Kobert states that the symptoms can be explained uniformly by the action of a poison, to which he gives the provisional name of "phallin." This is an albuminous substance which dissolves the corpuscles of the blood, resembling in this and other respects in a remarkable degree the action of helvellic acid.
According to Kobert phallin has so far only been found in Amanita phalloides and in its varieties verna, mappa, etc. He finds also in this mushroom muscarin and an atropin-like alkaloid.
The symptoms of the phalloides poisoning are complex. Vomiting is accompanied by diarrhœa, cold sweats, fainting at times, convulsions, ending in coma. There is also fever and a quickening of the pulse. All these symptoms, which follow in succession, according to one author, are dependent on two different poisonous substances. The first may be an acrid and fixed poison, for it is found after repeated dryings, as well in the aqueous as in the alcoholic extract. The second acts by absorption, and is purely narcotic.