From folk medicine · Siberia

Fly agaric in Siberia

Fly agaric

Among some Siberian peoples a custom was recorded of drinking the urine of a shaman, or of a reindeer, that had eaten fly agaric. There is a reason: the mushroom’s active compounds leave the body partly unchanged in urine and are found there an hour after eating. The name is curious too: in many languages it is the “fly” mushroom; in the Middle Ages flies were believed to enter the head and cause madness. The mushroom is poisonous.

Source: Didier Michelot, Leda Maria Melendez-Howell, “Amanita muscaria: chemistry, biology, toxicology, and ethnomycology”, Mycological Research 107(2), 2003 (Michelot & Melendez-Howell, Mycol Res, 2003). This is a folk record, not a treatment recommendation.

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