In article <4ou9v8$inl at oceanie.shom.fr>, gerault at shom.fr says...
>>WARNING !
>A young man died from an overdose after consuming Psilocybe
semilanceata. With
>a group of friends,he had consumed more than 50 of these mushrooms in
three
>intakes on the same day.
>Left unattended, he died on the very evening after a few-hour-long coma.
Lapsing into coma for a few hours and dying? The symptoms of his death do
not sound like any I have heard of from typical mushroom poisoning. Thus,
if he had ingested some other toxic species along with his original dose
there would have been a characteristic reaction to that toxin.
Psilocibe semilanceata are quite small and 50 does not sound like a huge
ammount. Could he have eaten something else which greatly synergized the
psilocibin or some other component? Was it an alergic reaction? Did
this happen in France, and does that region have a subspecies of P.
semilanceata which contains additional neurotoxic substances not found in
the North American species? A more complete pathology report would shed
light on this issue.
David Gaines (dgaines @vt.edu)
