Two Centuries of Amanita Research

Abstract

Systematic studies and classification of mushrooms began about 200 years ago, mainly in France. The name of Bulliard, the famous mycologist, appears as Bull. after the names of numerous fungi, e.g. Amanita verna Bull. ex Fr. Another great scientist, Paulet, was the first to provide experimental proof of poisonous toadstools in small animals. However, the isolation of homogeneous toxins was not possible at that time, since the development of effective laboratory techniques was just beginning. Also, in the following decades chemical knowledge on the poisonous components of Amanita progressed very slowly. Ford (1909), the pioneer of modern Amanita research, whose image, together with those of a series of later meritorious contributors, has been photographically presented on pages 17, 19, ascribed the very beginning of serious research to Kobert. From carefully selected specimens of Amanita phalloides, by precipitation with ethyl alcohol, Kobert obtained a substance which had the property of lyzing red blood corpuscles (Kobert 1891, 1893). This hemolytic phallin was considered the essential poison for a long time, inspite of its lability to heat, acids and alkali, until Kobert himself (1909) reported the existence of highly poisonous substances in the alcoholic filtrate of phallin precipitation. In particular, Ford and his colleagues published the results of their experiments, which began in 1903 and continued until 1909. These results showed that 0.4 mg doses of “amanitatoxin” per animal led to the death of guinea pigs (Ford 1909).