Food poisoning / by Edwin Oakes Jordan.

  • Edwin O. Jordan
Date:
[1917]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Food poisoning / by Edwin Oakes Jordan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    seems to have been the cause of death of the Count de Vecchi in Washington, D.C., in 1897. The Count, an attache 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 con¬ cluded 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 placed. Despite rigorous treatment and the administration of morphine and atropine, the count never recovered consciousness and died on the day following the accident. The count’s physician on returning to his office was also attacked, dizziness and ocular symptoms warning him of the nature of the trouble. Energetic treatment with apo- morphine and atropine was at once instituted by his colleagues and for a period of five hours he lay in a state of coma with occa¬ sional periods of lucidity. The grave symptoms were ameliorated and recovery set in somewhere near seven o’clock in the evening. His convalescence was uneventful, his restoration to health com¬ plete, and he is, I believe, still living. In this instance the count probably identified the fungi as caesaria or aurantiaca. From the symptoms and termination the species eaten must have been muse aria. A. muscaria contains an alkaloidal substance which has a characteristic effect upon the nerve centers and to which the name muscarin and the provisional chemical formula CsHI5N03 has been given. The drug a tropin
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