tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">[15] Many of the cases of reported poisoning in man belong to the class of exceedingly rare accidents and are without much significance in the present discussion. Such are the use of the leaves of the American false hellebore (Veratrum viride) in mistake for those of the marsh-marigold[16], the use of the fruit pulp of the Kentucky coffee tree (Gymnocladus dioica) in mistake for that of the honey-locust[17], the accidental employment of daffodil bulbs for food, and the confusion by children of the young shoots of the broad-leaf laurel (Kalmia latifolia) with the wintergreen.[18] One of the most serious instances of poisoning of this sort is that from the use of the spindle-shaped roots of the deadly water hemlock (Cicuta maculata) allied to the more famous but no more deadly poison hemlock. These underground portions of the plant are sometimes exposed to view by washing out or freezing, and are mistaken by children for horseradish, artichokes, parsnips, and other edible roots. Poisoning with water hemlock undoubtedly occurs more frequently than shown by any record. Eight cases and two deaths from this cause are known to have occurred in one year in the state of New Jersey alone.

Fig. 1.—Conium maculatum. The fresh juice of Conium maculatum was used in the preparation of the famous hemlock potion which was employed by the Greeks in putting their criminals to death. (From Applied and Economic Botany, by courtesy of Professor Kraemer [after Holm].)

An instance of food poisoning to be included under this head is the outbreak in Hamburg and some thirty other German cities in 1911 due to the use of a poisonous vegetable fat in preparing a commercial butter substitute.[19] In the attempt to cheapen as far as possible the preparation of margarin various plant oils have been added by the manufacturers. In the Hamburg outbreak, in which over two hundred cases of illness occurred, poisoning was apparently due to substitution of so-called maratti-oil, derived from a tropical plant (Hydrocarpus). This fat is said to be identical with oil of cardamom, and its toxic character in the amounts used in the margarin was proved by animal experiment. Increasing economic pressure for cheap foods may lead to the recurrence of such accidents unless proper precautions are used in testing out new fats and other untried substances intended for use in the preparation of food substances.[20]

Fig. 2.—Cicuta maculata (water hemlock); A, upper part of stem with leaves and compound umbels; B, base of stem and thick tuberous roots; C, cross-section of stem; D, flower; E, fruit; F, fruit in longitudinal section; G, cross-section of a mericarp. (From Applied and Economic Botany, by courtesy of Professor Kraemer [after Holm].)

Investigators from the New York City Health Department have found that certain cases of alleged "ptomain poisoning" were really due to "sour-grass soup."[21] This soup is prepared from the leaves of a species of sorrel rich in oxalic acid. In one restaurant it was found that the soup contained as much as ten grains of oxalic acid per pint!

Fig. 3.—Fly Amanita (poisonous). (Amanita muscaria L.) (After Marshall, The Mushroom Book, by courtesy of Doubleday, Page & Company.)

By far the best-known example of that form of poisoning which results from confounding poisonous with edible foods is that due to poisonous mushrooms.[22] There is reason to believe that mushroom (or "toadstool") intoxication in the United States has occurred with greater frequency of late years, partly on account of the generally increasing use of mushrooms as food and the consequently greater liability to mistake, and partly on account of the growth of immigration from the mushroom-eating communities of Southern Europe. Many instances have come to light in which immigrants have mistaken poisonous varieties in this country for edible ones with which they were familiar at home. In the vicinity of New York City there were twenty-two deaths from mushroom poisoning in one ten-day period (September, 1911) following heavy rains. The "fly Amanita"[23] (Amanita muscaria) in this country has been apparently often mistaken for the European variety of "royal Amanita" (A. caesaria).[24] Such a mistake seems to have been the cause of death of the Count de Vecchi in Washington, D.C., in 1897.

The Count, an attaché of the Italian legation, a cultivated gentleman of nearly sixty years of age, considered something of an expert upon mycology, purchased, near one of the markets in Washington, a quantity of fungi recognized by him as an edible mushroom. The plants were collected in Virginia about seven miles from the city of Washington. The following Sunday morning the count and his physician, a warm personal friend, breakfasted together upon these mushrooms, commenting upon their agreeable and even delicious flavor. Breakfast was concluded at half after eight and within fifteen minutes the count felt symptoms of serious illness. So rapid was the onset that by nine o'clock he was found prostrate on his bed, oppressed by the sense of impending doom. He rapidly developed blindness, trismus, difficulty in swallowing, and shortly lost consciousness. Terrific convulsions then supervened, so violent in character as to break the bed upon which he was