XLVII Poisonous Fungi and Toxic Foods
Fungi.—Of the poisonous mushrooms, the Amanita phalloides and the fly agaric, or Agaricus muscarius, are the most potent. The active principle of the former is phallin, and of the latter muscarine. The Amanita phalloides is distinguished from the common mushroom (Agaricus campestris) by having permanent white gills and a hollow stem. The Agaricus muscarius is bright red with yellow spots. Phallin is a toxalbumin which destroys the red blood-corpuscles, causing the serum to become red in colour and the urine blood-stained. Fibrin is liberated, and thromboses occur, especially in the liver. The symptoms may be mistaken for phosphorus-poisoning or acute yellow atrophy of the liver. Muscarine affects the nervous system chiefly.
Edible fungi have an agreeable taste and smell, and are firm in substance. Poisonous fungi have an offensive smell and bitter taste, are often of a bright colour, and soon become pulpy.
Symptoms.—These may be of the narcotic or irritant types. Usually, however, there is violent colic, with thirst, vomiting, and diarrhœa, mental excitement, followed by delirium, convulsions, coma, slow pulse, stertorous breathing, cyanosis, cold extremities, and dilated pupils.
Post-Mortem.—In phallin-poisoning the blood remains fluid; numerous hæmorrhages are present, with fatty degeneration of the internal organs.
Treatment.—Use the stomach-tube to give a solution of permanganate of potash, emetics, followed by a hypodermic injection of 1/50 grain of atropine. Transfusion of saline fluid. A dose of castor-oil would be useful.
Foods.—The kinds of food which most frequently produce symptoms of poisoning are pork, veal, beef, meat-pies, potted and tinned meats, sausages, and brawn. Sausage-poisoning is common in Germany. It is not necessary that the food should be ‘high’ to give rise to poisoning. It may arise from the use of the flesh of an animal suffering from some disease, from inoculation with micro-organisms, or from the presence of toxalbumoses or ptomaines. Many diseases, such as diarrhœa, enteric fever, and cholera, and perhaps tuberculosis, may be caused by eating infected food. Trichiniasis may also be mentioned. Tinned fish often gives rise to symptoms of poisoning, and shell-fish are not uncommonly contaminated with pathogenic micro-organisms. Mussel-poisoning was formerly supposed to be due to the copper in them derived from ships’ bottoms, but it is more probably the result of the formation of a toxine during life, and not after decomposition has set in. Milk, too, may give rise to gastro-intestinal irritation from the occurrence in it of chemical changes. There have been epidemics of poisoning from eating cheese containing tyrotoxicon. Ergotism from eating bread made with ergotized wheat is now rare, but pellagra from the consumption of mouldy maize, and lathyrism, due to the admixture with flour of the seeds of certain kinds of vetch, are still common in Southern Europe.
Symptoms.—The symptoms which result from the ingestion of poisonous meat are often very severe. In some cases their appearance is delayed from twenty-four to forty-eight hours. They may resemble those of an infectious disease or those of acute enteritis. Usually there are headache, anorexia, rigors, intestinal disturbance, pains in the back and limbs, and delirium. Sometimes the symptoms resemble atropine-poisoning, a condition due to ptomatropine.
Treatment.—Emetics, purgatives, stimulants, with hypodermic injections of strychnine and atropine along with stimulants.