ergotism

Ergotism or ergotamine toxicity, denoted as ET, is an important and nowadays rare condition [1, 2].

The basic facts are clear: "Saint Peter's snow" is an obscure regional name for what is commonly known as ergot; ergot is a fungal disease of cereal grasses, especially rye; and consumption of ergot-infested bread can cause ergotism, the symptoms of which include phantasms, delusions, and hallucinations--that is, all the psychic convulsions that religions thrive on.

It has suggested that serotonin may lead to ergotism, a similar condition of systemic vasoconstriction [19].

[64] have developed apta-decontamination of ergot alkaloids (causing severe poisoning known as ergotism), using DNA aptamer-based ergot alkaloids immobilized on silica for specific solid phase extraction system.

Claviceps cyperi, a new cause of severe ergotism in dairy cattle consuming maize silage and teff hay contaminated with ergotised Cyperus esculentus (nut sedge) on the Highveld of South Africa.

Studies on Intraarterial (for ergotism patient's (44,45,46,47) and intracarotid (for cerebral blood flow measurements) in normal subjects (48,49,6,7,50,51,53) are noted.

Different skin diseases were labelled with it, with the most important symptom being red exanthema, but in Europe the term was generally marked as ergotism. The most popular healing method of the condition was to butter the skin with pork fat which soothed the itching and the redness of the skin and thus the order was allowed to grow as many pigs as necessary without paying taxes (Husband 1992, 25).

Morel's travels and clinical experience taught him that Europe's masses endured a host of crippling diseases, including cretinism and ergotism. Shocked by the incidence of these and other diseases among the poor, Morel turned the theory of progress on its head.

Ergotism is the proposed mechanism for bewitchment in the Salem witch trials as well as the condition termed St.

Although most of the recorded amputations have to do with traumatic battle injury, some amputations were due to leprosy and ergotism. Ergot was a medicinal rye plant that deadened the limbs senses and in some cases caused gangrene.

Claviceps tainted grain, notably rye, causes ergotism. By the authors' own account, in the agrarian Early Middle Ages half of all children died before age five and those who reached age forty were exceptional.