The Poisoning of Count Achilles De Vecchj and the Origins of American

Volume 16, Number 1, Spring 2006 37

Th e Poisoning of Count Achilles de Vecchj and the Origins of American Amateur Mycology

David W. Rose President, Connecticut-Westchester Mycological Association (COMA) [email protected]

Abstract

Th e fatal mushroom poisoning of Count Achilles de Vecchj, an Italian diplomat residing in Washington, DC, in 1897 was widely reported in the press and served as a stimulus to promote knowledge of mushroom identiﬁ cation. Count de Vecchj died from eating Amanita muscaria, a toxic species not normally fatal. Subsequent investigation of the de Vecchj poisoning by botanists of the United States Department of Agriculture resulted in public advisories about toxic mushrooms and edible species sold in public markets in Washington, DC. Th e poisoning occurred at a time of increasing popular interest in mushroom identiﬁ cation and mycophagy, and mushroom clubs in the northeastern United States took great interest in the case to educate the public about mushrooms.

Keywords: Amanita muscaria, amateur mycology, Charles Horton Peck, Charles McIlvaine, Count Achilles de Vecchj, mycophagy

IN 1897, AT THE K Street Market in Wash- believing they were eating Amanita caesarea. ington, DC, a person could purchase fresh wild What they ate was actually Amanita muscaria. Dr. mushrooms from several African-American mar- Kelly lapsed into a stupor, was hospitalized, and ket women. Th e women collected these fungi in survived; Count de Vecchj, a portly man whose nearby fi elds and woods and routinely off ered health was compromised by several chronic prob- them for sale along with other vegetable produce lems, fell into a coma and died the following day. available at the market. Th ey were noted for Th e fatal poisoning was widely reported in the wisely limiting their selection to four common press, sending a shockwave of concern through edibles, and authorities from the U.S. Depart- the mycological community of Washington and ment of Agriculture confi rmed the expertise of the northeast coast, especially since the Count’s the market women in identifying and keeping to reputation as member of the Italian Diplomatic these species. Corps and legendary leader of a United States Th e unfortunate occasion that gave rise to this Civil War brigade heightened the sense of no- confi rmation was the unusual purchase of a poi- toriety and misfortune of the misidentifi cation. sonous species from a man not normally known In fact, the de Vecchj poisoning represents a sig- as a mushroom vendor at the K Street market. ni fi cant moment in the growing popularity of Th e purchaser, Achilles de Vecchj, a well-known mushrooming in the 1890s, and the case became Washingtonian who was reportedly “an expert instructive as a cautionary tale of what could hap- in mushrooms” instructed the market man to pen to a mushroom fancier whose attention to collect the mushrooms for him and purchased a detailed identifi cation proved too cavalier. basketful to enjoy at the table. On the morning of American culture in the 1890s involved an November 9, 1897, Count de Vecchj sat down to expanding middle class and the growth of many breakfast with his friend Dr. Daniel J. Kelly; the popular sporting activities with enduring sig- two men consumed platefuls of the mushrooms, nifi cance, like baseball and cycling. Among the

McIlvainea 16 (1) Spring 2006 37 38 McIlvainea

leisure activities of the time was a burgeoning Columbus Horticultural Society Journal, and Popu- interest in mushrooms. Mushrooming as a hobby lar Science Monthly. Endorsing wild mushrooms near the turn of the century sometimes arose at as a standard item of cuisine still met with general the converging pursuits of botany and horticul- resistance save for those individuals stimulated by ture, as the work of mushroom cultivator William a curiosity for the natural world and a propensity Falconer suggests, and sometimes stood alone, to utilize “nature’s bounty.” As the unwary and isolated from mainstream amateur botany as a uninformed began to notice and eat mushrooms, peculiarity fi t only for alienated individuals like and perhaps be poisoned by a toxic variety, the artist Mary Banning, taunted and teased by street need for basic instruction in identifi cation be- urchins for her interest in the fungi. William came paramount. Publications on identifying ed- Dean Howells neatly captured the ambivalence ible and poisonous species became more frequent of the growing fascination with mushrooms used in the 1890s; the fi rst mushroom clubs were orga- for nature study in a middle-class Boston fam- nized in Washington, Boston, and Philadelphia; ily in his novel Th e Rise of Silas Lapham (1885). and several individuals stepped forward to edu- Howells wrote: “Lily, the elder of the girls, had cate the masses about the pleasures and dangers brought back a number of studies of kelp and of fungi. Th ese included Thomas Taylor, Charles toadstools, with accessory rocks and rotten logs, Horton Peck, William Hamilton Gibson, Julius which she would never fi nish up and never show A. Palmer, and Charles McIlvaine. any one, knowing the slightness of their merit.” Th omas Taylor (1820–1910) was the fi rst to Interest in mycophagy grew steadily from the disseminate critical information about mush- time of the Civil War. Popular articles with titles rooms to a broad audience in the latter part of the such as “A Basketful of Fungi,” “Mushrooms for 19th century. Th e U.S. Department of Agricul- the Table,” and “French Mushrooms” appearing ture (USDA) hired Taylor as its microscopist in in the periodicals American Kitchen Magazine, the 1871, when the department had but a single mi- Volume 16, Number 1, Spring 2006 39 croscope for the study of the fungal origin of plant the course of his lifelong career at the New York diseases and the adulteration of foods. Besides his State Museum he identifi ed, named, and illus- professional studies and published reports on trated over 2,700 species of fungi and published grape mildews like Botrytis and Oidium, Taylor scores of articles describing them in botanical reserved a passion for the gilled mushrooms. His journals and popular magazines. Th ough he fo- annual U.S.D.A. Report of the Microscopist led to cused on the fl eshy fungi (mushrooms), Peck also a serial publication entitled Student’s Handbook studied plant pathogens and in the 1890s shifted of Mushrooms of America Edible and Poisonous his focus to edible and poisonous mushrooms in (1897–98), stemming from his enormously pop- an eff ort to educate a public that was increasingly ular “Twelve Edible Mushrooms of the U.S.” in interested in mycophagy. His Report of the State the U.S.D.A. annual report of 1885. In 1894 and Botanist on Edible Fungi of New York, 1895–1899 1895, the USDA mailed out over 36,000 copies (1900) culminated this aspect of his work. In of this report, attesting to the phenomenal public 1893 he organized a prize-winning exhibit of interest in mushrooms. Th ese reports, along with edible and poisonous mushrooms for the World’s Charles Peck’s annual reports in New York, were Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois. the fi rst publications that served a growing con- As Peck’s reputation developed, a great di- stituency hungry for detailed knowledge about versity of individuals wrote to him seeking his the identifi cation of fungi. Taylor and Peck, of determinations for their specimens and copies course, were correspondents for over two decades of his published reports, and he happily served from 1874 on matters mycological. Peck provid- the amateur mycological community of the time. ed assistance with the identifi cation of specimens, Several expressed not only an interest in identify- placed Taylor in contact with Mary Banning for ing and eating mushrooms, but in promoting this mushroom sketches, and also corresponded with interest to feed the impoverished and unfortu- his daughter A. Robena Taylor, who assisted in nate, based on the perception that mushrooms as Taylor’s mushroom studies. For Th omas and a food source were generally abundant but going Robena Taylor, as for many others, Peck was a to waste through ignorance and disuse. One of touchstone and powerful magnet for mycologi- these was Charles McIlvaine (1840–1909) whose cal inquiry; his singular expertise and generous personal mission was “to popularize knowledge of outreach were unsurpassed in developing general fungi and have the vast supply of useful food now interest in the fungi. wasted, utilized.” McIlvaine became a regular Charles Horton Peck (1833–1917) was an correspondent, fi rst writing to Peck in 1893 with authority on the fungi and an internationally this challenging introduction as a mushroom en- known fi gure in the botanical community in the thusiast: “I take no man’s word for the qualities late 19th century. Appointed the fi rst New York of a toadstool. I go for it myself.”¹ His voracious State Botanist by the Board of Regents of the appetite for suspicious toadstools included such State University of New York in 1867, Peck species as Russula emetica (“among the best”) and forged a unique career in mycology and botany, Boletus satanus (“one of the very best”). McIl- assiduously collecting and cataloguing the fungi, vaine earned an enduring reputation as a bold mosses, and vascular plants of New York and experimenter and for his nonchalance in tossing identifying specimens from around the world off extravagant claims for the edibility of toxic for a host of correspondents in the United States species of Hypholoma and unpalatable species of and Europe. Th ough he restricted his eldworkfi Cortinarius. Th ese claims seem scarcely credible to New York, his mycological exploration of today, and no one having an acquaintance with the state was extensive, and his work was very common mushrooms would recommend eating, well known through the publication of annual for example, the poisonous Hypholoma fasciculare, reports of the New York State Museum. Begin- as did McIlvaine: “It is not poisonous, but one of ning with the 22nd Annual Report of the Regents our most valuable species. . . . It makes a choice of the University of the State of New York in 1870, pickle and a good catsup.”² McIlvaine’s legendary he published regular collection catalogues and re- gastrointestinal fortitude (he has been known by search fi ndings that provided a reliable source of the moniker “Old Ironguts”) and unwavering information for botanists and mycologists. Over enthusiasm for mycophagy as a panacea for hu- 40 McIlvainea mankind once led John Cage to quip, “Charles about an overlooked but abundant food source. McIlvaine was able to eat most anything, provid- Benson had been in communication with Taylor, ing it was a fungus.” McIlvaine was partial to McIlvaine, Andrew Price Morgan, and Henry alcohol and sexual dalliance in his private life, to Ravenel’s daughter when he initiated his contact pontifi cation in mycological company (except, with Peck in a letter of December 15, 1893, stat- perhaps, with Peck), and to fl orid eloquence in ing that “my principal object in educating myself his Chautauqua lectures. He complained to Peck in this line is to educate, in turn, the poor people that many of Th omas Taylor’s illustrations misla- about me to use the bountiful provisions of na- beled “edible” species as “poisonous,” and in 1893 ture which they allow to go to decay, unused, at he publicly lashed out at Taylor in the New York their very doors, in such quantities.”⁴ Benson Tribune with a cantankerous editorial, “Th e Pro- appealed to Peck for assistance with identifi ca- test of a Mycophagist,” which led Robena Taylor tion, describing such local mushrooms as “Rufus to pen these words to Charles Peck: Brown,” the “Canary” Tricholoma, and “Gingy- cake” (Boletus edulis, a.k.a. ginger-cake). Peck Do you know a Mr. McIlvaine who keeps adver- even entertained a notion for naming a “Boletus tising the fact that he is about to publish a book bensoni” in his honor. One mushroom, however, with illustrations of 400 mushrooms which he has eaten and who claims that emetica satanus that commanded particular interest for Berry piperatus etc. are all good eating when cooked? Benson was Amanita muscaria. He attacks Father and he attacks Palmer say- Over a ten-year period, from 1894 to 1904, ing that nearly every one of the mushrooms in Benson reported to Charles Peck the results of his Palmer’s plates marked poisonous [is] edible. A experiments eating Amanita muscaria, a known member of Congress told us he was something poisonous species, and directed probing questions of a crank but I have never met him and he to Peck about the nature of its toxic qualities. In seems quite wild because Father does not bother fact, he had such success in avoiding any ill eff ects to answer his attacks. He seems to write on the in this endeavor that he doubted that the species principle of the man who says, “He who cometh was toxic. Th ere is little indication that Benson after me may be greater than I, but all who come appreciated the psychoactive potential of this before me were thieves and robbers.” [original emphasis] . . . He does not scruple to mislead mushroom, but here again, he reported noth- or misrepresent in his remarks. . . . He gener- ing remarkable, other than one fl eeting instance ally writes his articles under cover of editorials of feeling “a little light-headed.” Benson felt he which are full of “Capt McIlvaine’s” views and was serving the science of mycology in his quest, exploits in mycology.”³ and like many advanced amateurs of the time he acquired a respectable expertise in both theoreti- Another of Peck’s regular correspondents cal and folk taxonomies of the fungi and in what from 1893 to 1912 was a confederate Civil War we would now call ethnomycology. He asserted veteran, Berry Benson (1843–1923). Benson’s decisively to Peck that “[c]onsidering the close is a utterly remarkable story, for he served as a morphological relationships amongst species confederate scout and sharpshooter in the Civil widely separated in spore-color, I do not yet feel War, experiencing the furor of battle and risking satisfi ed that the present classifi cation lies along his life through the entire war, from the fi ring on the lines of evolution, which w[oul]d certainly be Fort Sumter to Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. the most natural classifi cation.” [original empha- Captured by Union forces behind enemy lines sis] Th e perceptive intelligence of this observation in 1864, Benson was sent to Elmira Prison in is matched by his questions concerning Amanita New York where he and several other prisoners muscaria, such as “Is there an Amanita so closely crafted a daring escape by tunneling to safety and resembling muscaria that it would deceive me?” living on the run for weeks. Peck was probably And “Are some Muscaria poisonous and others unaware of these exploits until Benson revealed not?”⁵ He examined the problem from several them to him in a letter in 1912; in the meantime, diff ering angles, pondering whether the famed his letters bespeak a man eager to learn the fungi fl y agaric was or was not toxic, was variably toxic, for their own sake and in order to teach poor or whether he had misidentifi ed the species alto- country folk near his home in Augusta, Georgia, gether. Volume 16, Number 1, Spring 2006 41

From the careful descriptions and several highly poisonous species. Julius Palmer, too, har- samples that he provided Peck, it is unlikely that bored a fascination with Amanita poisoning, and, Benson misidentifi ed his subject. Of similar spe- like McIlvaine, believed that human absorption cies, he observed that Amanita caesarea “might of poisons provided the key to understanding the appear to a mere novice the same [as muscaria], is toxic principle of the genus as a whole. Palmer widely diff erent to my eye, even at a glance. I eat also postulated absorption through the pores of that freely and fi nd it excellent.”⁶ He told Peck the skin, making a similar fantastic claim that an that he began his experimentation by dropping a “Amanita held in the closed hand will produce small piece of Amanita muscaria in a cup of hot all the symptoms of poisoning, even to convul- coff ee and drinking it. He gradually increased the sions.”⁹ Like Benson and McIlvaine, Palmer dosage, measuring his specimens by “grains” on valued the experiential dimension of practical a druggist’s scales, until he was eating several at a mycophagy and once reported to Peck his own, time. On November 24 he reported “I began eat- albeit inadvertent and inconclusive, dinner of ing on Monday, a small piece, and increasing the Amanita muscaria:¹⁰ quantity every breakfast, till, on the next Sunday . . . I ate of them till I was surfeited.” Th is myco- My brother told me that in a certain meadow logical Mithridates noted that the taste was “very land, there was an abundance of long-stemmed rich,” and he “observed no results of any kind, yellow topped mushrooms, to use his exact ex- from eating them, either good or bad.” However, pression, looking just like griddle-cakes; I went fi ve years later, in 1899, he reported to Peck a for them, and had he said corn-meal instead of buck-wheat the description would have “peculiar” illness that his physician suggested been correct; I gathered some, brought them “came from eating A. M.” based on the alkalinity to Boston, broiled three, all that suited me in ⁷ of his urine. Th e British mycologist Miles Joseph appearance, and Mrs. Palmer and I had them Berkeley had theorized that mushrooms became with our Sunday chicken, pronouncing them toxic through an excess of alkali, though Julius very sweet and good; when I got along a little Palmer, for one, later rejected this idea. Benson farther in my investigations, I identifi ed the was fully familiar with Palmer’s writings on the griddle-cakes as Am. muscaria. Now, I suppose subject. you would ask for my explanation; the worst of Benson’s eff orts to determine the edibility of it is, that I hav’n’t any to off er; I kept expecting Amanita muscaria represented a personal investi- to fi nd something else for the Musc[aria], and gation based on a homegrown scientifi c curiosity to this day, I never have; the only theory I can off er is that of mistake in identity, at the time that was independent of Charles McIlvaine and I ate them, my discrimination not being nicely Julius Palmer. Benson communicated regu- cultivated then; yet, as I think of their appear- larly with McIlvaine and appreciated the good ance at this moment, the manner in which the Captain’s wide experimentation in mycophagy, large white gills fl attened down, and the shapely but it seems doubtful that he was merely copy- stem came out, I feel as sure of their identity as ing McIlvaine’s eff orts. In fact, he expressed his one is of a striking face he has once seen. Soon skepticism at the Captain’s preposterous claims after this, I began to write to the doctors when about the volatility of the Amanita poison, re- I heard of a poisoning case, and ever since I ap- porting to Peck that “Capt. M. has often warned preciated the dangers of the Amanita family, I me against handling them, and wrote to me that have not taken the pains to confi rm or impeach ¹¹ he was once rendered insensible by smelling one my early experience. [Amanita], and that he killed a dog by holding it to his nose for fi ve minutes.”⁸ We know that Mc- If there is any mushroom surrounded by aura Ilvaine himself experimented with Amanita mus- and burdened with the freight of mysticism, caria from his remarks in One Th ousand American mayhem, and mortality, it is surely Amanita Fungi (1900), in which he observed that a “raw muscaria. Th e type species of the genus Amanita, piece of the cap, the size of a hazel nut, aff ects me this red-capped and statuesque representative of sensibly if taken on an empty stomach” but that the fungal world carries powerful and enduring [n]icotine from smoking a pipe with me abates associations with the supernatural in cultures the the symptoms.”⁹ He concluded that it was a world over and is known variously as the fl y aga- 42 McIlvainea ric, tue-mouche (France), Fliegenpilz (Germany), “Poisoned by Eating Toadstools.” and mukhomor (Russia). In Germany it was also Chung Yu Ting, the personal servant of the known as “Giftpilz”—the archetypal “poisonous prominent Count Mitkiewicz and his family of toadstool.” Robert Gordon Wasson’s thesis that Washington Circle, had emigrated from China Amanita muscaria was the “divine mushroom of to the United States in 1878 with Ma King immortality” of the ancient Aryans, the Soma of Chiang, an imperial envoy. He was the eldest the sacred Hindu text Rig Veda, has captured the son of Li Hung Chang, known as the “Chinese attention of historians and orientalists as well as Bismarck.” Multi-lingual, multi-talented, and mycologists. Th ough Wasson’s speculations fall highly regarded in the community, Chung fan- short of conclusive evidence, his book Soma: cied he knew all about the mushrooms he found Th e Divine Mushroom of Immortality (1968) has growing in Bethesda Park near the ruins of a spawned unceasing interest in the role of fl y hotel fi re. Bringing nearly a bushel-load back to agaric as a psychoactive agent in the history of the Mitkiewicz family, who then believed they religion; however, it is the toxicological history of had successfully convinced him to destroy them, the fl y agaric that is more germane to the pres- Chung nonetheless prepared and ate “a great dish ent story. Th eodor Weiland (1968) stated that of the spongy vegetation” and sent packages of its toxicity “is generally overestimated” and that the fungi, later identifi ed as Amanita phalloides symptoms of intoxication are “very complex and at the USDA by Th omas Taylor, to “several of resemble those of drugs that act on the central his housekeeping friends.” Count Mitkiewicz nervous system.”¹² Most important to note here discovered Chung much later that evening in is that the toxins that are (variably) manifest intense agony, and his demise followed the classic in Amanita muscaria are completely unlike the progression of symptoms of Amanita phalloides potent, life-threatening amatoxins of Amanita poisoning. Chung Yu Ting died four days later, to phalloides and related species. Knowledge of the the enormous chagrin of the Mitkiewicz family. spectrum of toxic action in the genus was emerg- Before he succumbed, however, he managed to ing in the 1890s at the time Benson, Palmer, enumerate the addresses to which he dispatched and McIlvaine were experimenting with eating his packaged mushrooms, thus preventing injury Amanita muscaria. While these mycophagists or worse to his beloved friends. Th e Post reported convincingly demonstrated that this species was his terse last words to the Countess Mitkiewicz not ordinarily lethal, the widely publicized case on October 17, 1894, “I disobeyed for once, and of Count Achilles de Vecchj exploded on the therefore I must die. Good-bye.”¹³ scene in 1897 with a sensational counter-example Th is harrowing local story of mushroom poi- that eating this fungus could indeed prove fatal, soning remained vivid and memorable for many contrary to some contemporary observation and Washingtonians who read a similarly shocking most subsequent toxicological history. newspaper account just three years later, in 1897. It could be argued that Washington, DC, and On this occasion, however, the tragedy befell the Albany, NY were the two major centers for the high and mighty, not the servants. Born in Milan, dissemination of mycological knowledge to the Italy (c. 1836) near Lake Maggiore, Achille Paul general public in the late 19th century through de Vecchj was a prominent attaché of the Italian Th omas Taylor’s various U.S.D.A. circulars and Diplomatic Corps whose reputation rested sol- Charles Peck’s annual New York state reports. idly on two remarkable exploits in the American Interest in mushroom hunting and mycophagy Civil War. Th e fi rst was that de Vecchj was the ran very high in the Washington area. A mush- special ambassador of Giuseppe Garibaldi, the room club had been organized as early as 1894 Italian nationalist revolutionary leader, and had and, three years prior to the Achilles de Vecchj personally delivered to President Abraham Lin- incident, city readers encountered a disturbing coln Garibaldi’s letter of support for the Union newspaper account of a death precipitated by cause at the outset of the war. Th e second was that eating deadly mushrooms. Th e Washington Post he entered the Civil War himself after serving as of October 18, 1894, ran the news story, “Chung a soldier in Italy, leading the 9th Massachusetts Yu Ting’s End,” with the subtitles, “Count Mit- kiewicz Mourns His Gifted Servant’s Loss” and Continued on page 52 52 McIlvainea

Th e Poisoning of Count de Vecchj, of vision, and lapsed into unconsciousness, all continued from page 42 within two hours. Meanwhile, colleagues noticed that Dr. Kelly was growing incoherent and stupe- Artillery, a unit known as “De Vecchj’s Battery.” fi ed at his desk at the patent offi ce and had him He was injured by a gunshot wound and a fall taken to a local hospital, where he shortly recov- from his horse at Fort Scott, Kansas, in 1863. De ered. However, despite the eff orts of his physician Vecchj settled in the United States and, though to revive him by injections of apomorphine and he was a man of wealth and property in Italy, he atropine, Count de Vecchj, racked by convulsions listed his occupation as “engineer” and served as so terrifi c that he broke his bed apart, never re- a member of the Italian legation, becoming an gained consciousness and died the following day, ardent supporter of the Republican party and a November 10. Th e Washington coroner certifi ed friend of President Benjamin Harrison. De Vec- the cause of death as “mushroom poisoning and chj was a large, imposing man “of a fi ne physique apoplexy.” No inquest was held, and the deceased and carriage”: six feet four inches in height and was interred at Arlington Cemetery.¹⁵ over 300 pounds at the time of his death, he was As soon as news of the poisoning had been regarded, according to the Washington Star, as broadcast, U.S.D.A. botanists Frederick Coville “one of the best-known Italian residents of this and Victor K. Chesnut launched into action to country.” Th e press characterized Achilles de Vec- investigate the matter. Chesnut, an expert on chj as a man of great cultivation and refi nement, food poisons, interviewed Dr. Kelly at length. and the Star remarked that he was “said to be very Coville asserted unequivocally that the poison- fond of mushrooms and prided himself that he ings of Chung Yu Ting and Achilles de Vecchj knew all about them.”¹⁴ required a strong warning. Seeking to allay public De Vecchj died from eating Amanita muscaria, apprehension about mushroom sales at the K and the story unfolded in the Washington press as Street market, Coville praised the expertise of follows: While shopping at the K Street Market, the regular mushroom vendors, African-Ameri- de Vecchj encountered a market dealer by the can women who restricted their sales to “the name of John Bowes, who resided near Arlington, common mushroom (Agaricus campestris), the Virginia, and questioned him about the availabil- horse mushroom (Agaricus arvensis), the shaggy ity of mushrooms in his vicinity. Bowes told him mushroom (Coprinus comatus) . . . , and the of some things “he supposed to be mushrooms” puff ball (Lycoperdon cyathiforme).” Coville stated, and at de Vecchj’s request, brought them to mar- “[T]he judgment of the colored market women ket soon after. Th e Count performed some chem- in Washington that a particular species is edible ical tests with acids and noted that their stems I consider as safe a guide as the decision of the did not blacken when cut with a knife. Bowes, highest botanical authority, not because their dumbfounded at the news of the poisoning (and knowledge of mushrooms is extensive but be- his role in providing the poison), related to in- cause they are thoroughly familiar with the two or vestigating authorities that the Count believed three edible species they handle and know them these to be infallible tests of wholesomeness. De as certainly from poisonous kinds as they know Vecchj also customarily compared mushroom persimmons from crab apples or opossums from purchases at the market “with colored pictures rabbits.”¹⁶ At least one of the women, however, of a Department of Agriculture publication.” He revealed a recipe for preparing Amanita muscaria took the mushrooms home and prepared them to for eating, a process that involved boiling in salt eat with his friend Dr. Daniel J. Kelly, an assistant water and steeping in vinegar. District of Co- examiner at the U.S. Patent Offi ce who resided at lumbia health department reports indicate that the same location as the Count, 1635 19th Street. offi cial action to condemn unwholesome food After a liberal breakfast of Amanita, at which in public markets for the year ending June 30, both men declared them “the fi nest mushrooms 1898, included meats, vegetables, and fruits, but they had ever eaten,” Dr. Kelly proceeded to his no specifi c mention of fungi. To all appearances, offi ce in town. Within minutes the Count grew the problem raised by the poisonings resided not ill and close to collapse. Refusing an emetic of- in any failure of public health, civic ordinance, or fered by Mrs. Kelly, he fell prostrate, lost all sense market practice but in the isolated misidentifi ca- Volume 16, Number 1, Spring 2006 53 tion of mushrooms growing freely in the wild by provided a certain cachet to his “investigation,” persons interested in eating them. Th e answer lay which he hinted to Peck that he had completed, in education, and mycologists rose to the chal- but it is unknown what became of his eff orts be- lenge of meeting the growing public interest in yond a rather predictable complaint that Victor mycology and mycophagy over the next several Chesnut’s USDA report was “very rotten.”²⁰ Mc- years with the de Vecchj case fi rmly in mind. Ilvaine contested and begrudged Chesnut’s thesis U.S.D.A. Circular No. 13, “Observations on that the species Amanita phalloides contained two Recent Cases of Mushroom Poisoning in the toxic agents, whereas he believe it contained only District of Columbia” (1898), written by Fred- Amanitine. Finally, the most potentially damning erick Coville, is the locus classicus of the Achilles statement made by those surrounding the case de Vecchj story. D. W. Prentiss discussed the case was that of Frank Baker. A superintendent at the in a report on fi ve cases of mushroom poisoning Smithsonian Institution, Baker wrote to Peck in in the Philadelphia Medical Journal, and Dr. Kelly 1898: “You have probably heard of the death himself gave an address before the Chemical from mushroom poisoning that occurred in this Soci ety of Washington, DC, entitled “A Personal city last fall due to an error in an illustration of Experience with Amanita muscaria Poisoning.”¹⁷ Amanita muscaria published by that Depart- Several mycologists became interested in the in- ment [U.S.D.A.].²¹ If it is true that an error in cident, not the least of whom were Taylor and a published U.S.D.A. illustration resulted in de McIlvaine. Robena Taylor immediately informed Vecchj’s misidentifi cation, the fault does not re- Peck about her father’s role in the case: side in Th omas Taylor’s most popular mushroom publications. I suppose you saw the account of [the] case Th e de Vecchj poisoning reverberated through of poisoning of two gentlemen here by mush- the mycological community for several years. rooms. Father has one of the mushrooms taken Lucien Marcus Underwood of the New York Bo- from the same plate from which the gentlemen tan i cal Garden, author of Moulds, Mildews and eat [sic] and a piece of one which Dr Kelly Mushrooms (1899), discussed the subject with eat—or was supposed to have eaten. Dr K is an mushroom clubs in Boston, New York, Philadel- old friend of ours and we were much disturbed at his dangerous illness. He says he did not see phia, and Washington. William G. Farlow specu- the dish that he eat until the mushrooms were lated that de Vecchj had mistaken the fl y agaric cooked. It is mooted that the other gentleman for Amanita rubescens since his collection of A. Count V was color blind. He would not take muscaria was gathered in late autumn “when it is an emetic as Dr K did else he might have been generally paler than in midsummer.”²² Nina L. saved. He was a stalwart man. Father is going to Marshall published Th e Mushroom Book in 1901, examine chemically I believe. Dr K is all right placing Count de Vecchj in the same company now.¹⁸ with Czar Alexis of Russia (both succumbed to Amanita muscaria). In the Charles Horton Peck Charles McIlvaine, ever the mycological mav- Archive, an unpublished manuscript by John N. erick, felt compelled to supplement the offi cial Brown, Th e Field Book of American Mushrooms, U.S.D.A. investigation with his own, or so he mentions the death of “Count de Vecchi and a said. He told Peck, “I am carefully investigating number of his friends,” seemingly beginning a the poisoning of Dr. Kelly and Count de Vecchi, process of mythologizing the case by exaggerat- in Washington, D. C. Th ey ate a large quantity ing its results. Later discussions of the de Vecchj of A. muscaria, mistaking it for A. caesarea. Th e incident appear in an appendix on “Mushroom sudden action of the poison is so at variance with Poisoning” by O. E. Fischer in C. H. Kauff man’s that of Amanitine, that I strongly suspect they ate Th e Agaricaceae of Michigan (1918) and in “Th e a species of which I have found but one speci- Distribution of Poisons in Mushrooms” (1909) men.”¹⁹ McIlvaine was founder and president of by William W. Ford, based on an address given to the Philadelphia Mycological Center, a name that the Boston Mycological Society. seems to harbor the connotation of an investiga- tive institute rather than a mushroom club, which ♦ is really what it was. Perhaps the Center’s name 54 McIlvainea

If anything, the poisoning of Count de Vec- river bed and is about ten feet pure earth and chj served to increase, rather than abate, interest only begins to dry now. Since last year the crops in the fungi at century’s turn. Th e Boston and of fungi has [sic] increased a thousand fold and Washington mushroom clubs fl ourished, and Lepiota naucinoides is just beginning to appear. Charles McIlvaine published the fi rst edition of . . . On one single rootstalk of [C]litocybe multiceps we have cut of[f] ninety two caps but their One Th ousand American Fungi in 1900. Of all [sic] are thousands of cluster[s] containing two the popular identifi cation guides of the time, to three hundred in one compact mass. In many this is the one that has best endured, perhaps place[s] the three species Coprinus, Clitocybe through—and not in spite of—the Captain’s and this purple one are so wedged together that brilliant eccentricity. McIlvaine’s busiest years they seem to grow on one stalk.”²³ were fi lled with moments of personal tribula- tion, including a divorce (which he depicted as a Th e local press reported that Washingtonians “housequake” to Peck), in which his wife charged by the hundreds went to marvel at this prodi- that he had falsely accused her of trying to poison gious fungal growth. A few years later in 1907 him—a ridiculous and ironic capstone to the per- Mr. Braendle published a pamphlet entitled Th e sonal story of the man disposed to recommend Two T’s or the Golden and Silvery Tricholoma, Russula emetica as an edible mushroom. Interest with the subtitle “two abundant edible species in mushrooms among Washingtonians continued of mushrooms in the pine woods of the District in high gear because mushrooms were amazingly of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia, about the plentiful. In fact, at a time when urbanization time of Th anksgiving Day.” At the conclusion had yet to obliterate pastures, parks, commons, of his guide, Braendle lyrically expressed the and woodlands, mushrooms were conspicuous wisdom sticking to a couple of reliable edibles, and ubiquitous. Fred J. Braendle, a local mush- urging his readers to “Make no mistake!” Perhaps room enthusiast, wrote to Charles Peck in 1898 he had Achilles de Vecchj in mind. describing a colossal growth of fungi on an island in the Potomac River. Braendle related that thou- You have now been told that mushrooms sands of people had visited the island to view and are many: collect the mushrooms, which included species of Make no mistake! Do not eat any Lepista nuda, Lyophyllum decastes [Clitocybe multi- But these tricholomas, be they yellow or gray, ceps], and Coprinus comatus. Braendle reported on And not till storms have swept all others away. a new “wonder of the world” in Washington: Should you then wish to learn some more, In the same vein, and on the same score, Pictured more clear, and words more terse, I have dispatched to you another box containing I shall soon give you a chance a specie in which I am particularly interested. It To get is not only very pretty, but its edible qualities Mushrooms are nearly fi rst class. It is always clean and neat, In light purple all over and free from larvae, and Prose and Verse keeps well several days. I have tried its edibil- All at a Glance.²⁴ ity thoroughly. At my last meal I have eaten eighteen good-sized plants fried in butter and relished the last one as much as the fi rst. Th e NOTES spore prints show that the spore[s] are of a pink- 1. Charles Horton Peck Papers, New York State Mu- ish yellow hue. Th ese mushrooms grow in great seum, Series 1: Correspondence; Charles McIlvaine to profusion on the Potomac fl ats in company Charles Peck, May 1, 1894 [hereafter cited as CHPP]. with Clitocybe multiceps and Coprinus comatus. Th is mushroom growth will be a wonder of the 2. McIlvaine, Charles. 1901. One Th ousand American world. It seems to me the entire fl ats will soon Fungi. Dover reprint, 1973. p. 357. be one solid mass of fungi: Coprinus [c]omatus 3. CHPP; A. Robena Taylor to Charles Peck, August and Clitocybe grow I should say by the hundred 21, 1894. thousands to say very little and of the purplish ones bushels of them can be gathered in a few 4. CHPP; Berry Benson to Charles Peck, December hours. Th e soil of these fl ats was made about 15, 1893. See also Berry Benson’s Civil War Book, ed- four or fi ve years ago from the dredgings of the ited by Susan Williams Benson, 1962. Volume 16, Number 1, Spring 2006 55

5. CHPP, Benson to Peck, June 28, 1894; November 16. Coville, F. 1898. “Observations on recent cases 24, 1894; October 30, 1894. of mushroom poisoning in the District of Columbia.” U.S. Department of Agriculture, Circular No. 13 (rev. 6. CHPP, Benson to Peck, October 15, 1894. ed.). 7. CHPP, Benson to Peck, November 14, 1899. 17. Prentiss, D. W. 1898. “Five cases of mushroom- 8. CHPP, Benson to Peck, October 30, 1894. poisoning, three of which proved fatal; treatment of 9. McIlvaine, C. op. cit., p. 15. the poisoning.” September 24, 1898, Philadelphia Medical Journal. 10. Palmer, Julius. 1894. About Mushrooms: A Guide to the Study of Esculent and Poisonous Fungi, p. 44. 18. CHPP, A. Robena Taylor to Charles Peck, Novem- ber 16, 1897. 11. CHPP, Julius A. Palmer to Charles Peck, Decem- ber 22, 1890. 19. CHPP, Charles McIlvaine to Charles Peck, Novem- ber 13, 1897. 12. Weiland, T. 1968. “Poisonous principles of mushrooms of the genus Amanita.” Science, March 1, 1968, 20. CHPP, McIlvaine to Peck, October 19, 1898. 159 (3813): 946–52. For a recent summary of Ama- 21. CHPP, Frank Baker to Charles Peck, August 19, nita muscaria, see Michelot, D. and L. M. Melendez- 1898. Howell. 2003. “Amanita muscaria: chemistry, biology, 22. Farlow, William Gilson. 1898. “Some edible and toxicology, and ethnomycology.” Mycological Research poisonous mushrooms.” U.S. Department of Agricul- 107 (2):131–46. ture, Bulletin No. 16. 13. Washington Post, October 18, 1894. 23. CHPP, Fred J. Braendle to Charles Peck, Novem- 14. Washington Evening Star, November 9, 10, and ber 7, 1898. 11, 1894; Washington Post, November 10, 11, and 12, 24. Braendle, Fred J. 1907. Th e two t’s or the golden and 1894. silvery Tricholoma. 15. National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC; Civil War Pension Records, Achilles de Vecchj, death certiﬁ cate; August 10, 1898.