Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 11.djvu/109

Rh Our symptoms were not unlike those exhibited in a person using tobacco for the first time. Dizziness, nausea, purging, perspiration with alternate cold spells, all passed over us within an hour, so rapid is the effect of the mushroom-virus. Two wineglasses of whiskey and sweet-oil (equal parts) neutralized the poison, and in a few hours we were no worse for the experience.

I would prescribe this remedy in all cases rather than the use of emetics. Omit the whiskey, if you please, or substitute vinegar for spirits, but take sweet-oil liberally in case of a mistake. I believe the Italians eat many dangerous fungi with impunity, because, when fresh, their properties are changed by sweet-oil; preserved, they are neutralized by pickle. Either of these elements renders harmless the peculiar alkali, to a superfluity of which mushrooms owe their noxious qualities.

We must use the same discretion daily employed in selecting other food. Who would willingly eat tainted meat? Is it so very uncommon to find a goose or duck too strong to be palatable? Who has not been poisoned by bad oysters, stale fish, or overripe fruit?

Because many mushrooms do not agree with the human system, it does not follow that they are deadly poisons. I have friends who do not pretend to distinguish varieties, but eat whatever has an appetizing flavor. (I do not consider this safe ground, because the inability to identify any one variety is doubtless the cause of many cases of poisoning.) Yet, although they claim to have made their breakfast from such obscurely known kinds as that which I afterward classified as the smeared cortinarius (Cortinarius collinitus), I have never known them to acknowledge any other sensation than an intense desire to hunt for more. Julie and I had one day eaten plentifully of the honey-colored mushroom (Agaricus melleus). On looking it up in Greville, a well-known Scotch authority, I found the following notice: "This species is said to be freely eaten on the Continent; at least Fries quotes the authority of Trattinick for the fact. But, on the other hand, Persoon gives it a bad character. In this he is supported by Paulet, who tried its effect upon a dog. The poor animal died twelve hours after receiving the poisonous fungus."

Notwithstanding such a warning, it continues to be a favorite article of diet with us to-day. I think it may be noxious raw, but that the heat kills the virus. It must be remembered that toadstool eating is by no means an exact science. Fungus-eaters are daily making discoveries. Twenty years ago the two leading authorities of England and America, Berkeley and Curtis, considered the Coprinus comatus poisonous.

There are but two ways in which it is proper to cook mushrooms. By far the majority are best broiled on a fine-wire gridiron. They should be sprinkled with salt and (if the species is well known as an esculent) red pepper, buttered as the fire browns them. Otherwise,