Mushroom Poisoning in North-East Assam. Report of 15 Cases

some of them are poisonous and are often very difficult to distinguish from the edible ones and cause many fatalities among the consumers from time to time. The earliest record of fatal poisoning dates back over two thousand years and many eminent people figured prominently among the victims. It occurred in the family of the Greek poet Euripides (5th century B.C.) and according to Pliny, the Latin historian, the Pope and two Emperors lost their lives from mushroom poisoning. It is commonly seen in the European continent where according to Lewes (1948) 200 fatal cases occur annually in Germany alone and many studies and reports on the subject relating to that continent were made during the latter part of the last century. In America, the first case was reported by Cheney in 1871 (quoted by Van der Veer and Farley, 1935) and since then cases were reported from all parts of U.S.A. Ford (1923) reviewed the history of the disease in the book named ' Legal Medicine and Toxicology ' by Peterson and others.