FUNGI, (Encycl.) The piperatus, or pepperagaric, though the most acrid and suspicious of the whole tribe, is eaten in great quantities by the Russians. They fill large vessels with them in the autumn, season or pickle them with salt, and eat them in the ensuing Lent. But as the free use of these and others of the genus has frequently been attended with fatal consequences, it may not be amiss in this place, once for all, to admonish the reader of the general nature and dangerous qualities of them; which we cannot do better than in the words of the great and ingenious Haller. "All fungi are crude in their nature, of speedy growth and sudden decay. They spring up, arrive at maturity, and perish in a few days, most of them dissolving away in a black corrupted liquor, of a fetid nauseous smell. They are the food of snails, beetles, flies, maggots, and the nidus where they deposit their young."
"The Russians indeed devour almost every species, even those which other nations esteem the most poisonous, such as the agaricus muscarius, piperatus, &c.; but all of them are a doubtful and suspicious food, and the most innocent have proved sometimes prejudicial."
"By analysis it is found, that seven parts of eight in their composition are watery. They yield by fire a yellow spirit like hartshorn, a yellow empyreumatic oil, and a dry, volatile, crystalline salt; so that their nature is evidently alkaline, extremely prone to corruption."
"Their fibres are tough and very difficult to digest, swelling in the stomach like a sponge; so that there are instances of their remaining undigested for three
days before their bad effects have appeared. The maladies they occasion are, a swelling of the abdomen, restlessness, heartburns, vomitings, colics, difficult breathings, hiccoughs, melancholy, diarrhoeas accompanied with a tenesmus, and gangrenes. To which dreadful complaints the acrimonious quality of some fungi bring on, besides, inflammations in the mouth, with bloody lotions and bloody stools. Lastly, it is certain that some species have an intoxicating quality, followed often by deliriums, tremblings, watchings, faintings, apoplexies, cold sweats, and death itself. Some have fancied that skilful cookery would deprive them of their bad effects, and that oils would stealth their noxious qualities; but these are fatal deceits, not to be trusted."
"To persons suffering from eating any species of fungi, the most approved and speedy remedy is to use emetics and cathartics."