"Mushrooms are unfit for food by decay or other cause, producing simply a disagreement with the system by containing some bitter, acrid, or slimy element, or by the presence of a wonderful and dangerous alkaloid which is absorbed in the intestinal canal. This alkaloid, so far as known, is found only in the Amanita family."
To Mr. Palmer, then, is due the chemical segregation of the Amanita group as the only repository of this deadly toxic.
Lesser poisoning
It has not been discerned in other species of fungi, whose so-called "poisonous" effects are more often traceable to mere indigestibility, the selection of "over-ripe" specimens, or to idiosyncrasy, rather than to their distinctly poisonous properties.
Many mushrooms of other families which do possess ingredients chemically at war with the human system—as the Russula emetica and certain Lactarii, for instance—at least give a fair warning, either by taste or odor, of their dark intentions.
Antidote for Amanita
First authentic application
Owing to the numerous deaths every year consequent upon mushroom-eating, and nearly always directly traceable to the Amanita, the discovery of an antidote to this poison has been the quest of many noted chemists—several supposed antidotes having been experimented with upon dogs and other animals without desired results. These included atropine, the deadly crystalline alkaloid from the Atropa belladonna. The earlier experiments upon animals with this drug in Paris, as described by Dr. Gautier in 1884, while encouraging, were not considered conclusive, but were sufficient to warrant the suggestion that the treatment upon man might be effective. In a résumé of the subject in the Philadelphia Medical and Surgical Reporter, December, 1885, for the benefit of the medical practitioners who are so frequently called upon to attend cases of mushroom poisoning, Captain Charles McIlvaine recommended the administration of a dose of atropine of from 0.05 to 0.0002 milligramme, and it was later reserved for the same gentleman to witness the first authentic instance of the application of this remedy in antagonism with the Amanita poison in the human system. The report of this experience was afterwards published (see Bibliography, No. 6), embodying also a complete and authentic account of the symptoms and treatment of the cases by the attending physician, Dr. J. E. Shadle, of Shenandoah, Pa., which account I feel is appropriately included here, being in full sympathy with the solicitous spirit of my pages. I therefore quote the statement of Dr. Shadle for the benefit of those interested.
Shenandoah, Pa., October 26, 1885.
Mr. Chas. McIlvaine: