Ergotism is the effect of long-term ergot poisoning, classically due to the ingestion of the alkaloids produced by the Claviceps purpurea fungus which infects rye and other cereals, and more recently by the action of a number of ergoline-based drugs. It is also known as ergotoxicosis, ergot poisoning and St Anthony's fire. Species About 50, including: Claviceps africanum Claviceps fusiformis Claviceps paspali Claviceps purpurea Ergot is the common name of a fungus in the genus Claviceps that is parasitic on certain grains and grasses. ... The skull and crossbones symbol traditionally used to label a poisonous substance. ... Species About 50, including: Claviceps africanum Claviceps fusiformis Claviceps paspali Claviceps purpurea Ergot is the common name of a fungus in the genus Claviceps. ... Divisions Chytridiomycota Zygomycota Glomeromycota Ascomycota Basidiomycota Deuteromycota The fungi (singular fungus) are a kingdom of eukaryotic organisms. ... This article is about cereals in general. ... Chemical structure of ergoline Ergoline is a chemical compound whose structure serves as the skeleton for a diverse range of alkaloids and synthetic drugs. ...

Causes

The toxic ergoline derivatives are found in ergot-based drugs (such as methylergometrine, ergotamine or, previously, ergotoxine). The deleterious side-effects occur either under high dose or when moderate doses interact with potentiators such as azithromycin. Oral medication A medication is a licenced drug taken to cure or reduce symptoms of an illness or medical condition. ... Chemical structure of ergoline Ergoline is a chemical compound whose structure serves as the skeleton for a diverse range of alkaloids and synthetic drugs. ... Ergotamine is a vasoconstrictor used for migraine prevention and is sometimes mixed with caffeine. ... Chemical structure of ergoline Ergoline is a chemical compound whose structure serves as the skeleton for a diverse range of alkaloids and synthetic drugs. ... Azithromycin is an azalide, a subclass of macrolide antibiotics. ...

Classically, eating cereals or cereal-based products contaminated with the fungus Claviceps purpurea also caused ergotism. Divisions Chytridiomycota Zygomycota Glomeromycota Ascomycota Basidiomycota Deuteromycota The fungi (singular fungus) are a kingdom of eukaryotic organisms. ...

Finally, the alkaloids can also pass through lactation from mother to child, causing ergotism in infants. Kittens nursing Lactation describes the secretion of milk from the mammary glands, the process of providing that milk to the young, and the period of time that a mother lactates to feed her young. ...

Symptoms

The symptoms can be roughly divided into convulsive symptoms and gangrenous symptoms.

Convulsive symptoms

Convulsive symptoms include painful seizures and spasms, diarrhea, paresthesias, itching, headaches, nausea and vomiting. Usually the gastrointestinal effects precede CNS effects. As well as seizures there can be hallucinations and mental effects including mania or psychosis. The convulsive symptoms are caused by clavine alkaloids. Paresthesia or paraesthesia (in British English) is a sensation of tingling, pricking, or numbness of a persons skin with no apparent long-term physical effect, more generally known as the feeling of pins and needles or of a limb being asleep. // Transient paresthesia is the temporary sensation of tingling... A diagram showing the CNS: 1. ... A hallucination is a sensory perception experienced in the absence of an external stimulus, as distinct from an illusion, which is a misperception of an external stimulus. ... Mania is a severe medical condition characterized by extremely elevated mood, energy, and thought patterns. ... Psychosis (not to be confused with psychopathy) is a generic psychiatric term for a mental state in which thought and perception are severely impaired. ... Chemical structure of ergoline Ergoline is a chemical compound whose structure serves as the skeleton for a diverse range of alkaloids and synthetic drugs. ... Diagram of Ephedrine An alkaloid, strictly speaking, is a naturally-occurring amine produced by a plant,[1] but amines produced by animals and fungi are also called alkaloids. ...

Gangrenous symptoms

The dry gangrene is a result of vasoconstriction induced by the ergotamine-ergocristine alkaloids of the fungus. It affects the more poorly vascularized distal structures, such as the fingers and toes. Symptoms include desquamation, weak peripheral pulse, loss of peripheral sensation, edema and ultimately the death and loss of affected tissues. Gangrene is necrosis and subsequent decay of body tissues caused by infection or thrombosis or lack of blood flow. ... The blood vessels are part of the circulatory system and function to transport blood throughout the body. ... Desquamation is the shedding of the outer layers of the skin. ... Edema (American English) or oedema (British English), formerly known as dropsy or hydropsy, is swelling of any organ or tissue due to accumulation of excess lymph fluid, without an increase of the number of cells in the affected tissue. ...

History

Epidemics of the disease were identified throughout history, though the references in classical writers are inconclusive. Rye, the main vector for transmitting ergotism, was not grown much around the Mediterranean. When Fuchs 1834 separated references to ergotism from erysipelas and other afflictions he found the earliest reference to ergotism in the Annales Xantenses for the year 857: "a Great plague of swollen blisters consumed the people by a loathsome rot, so that their limbs were loosened and fell off before death." In epidemiology, an epidemic (from Greek epi- upon + demos people) is a disease that appears as new cases in a given human population, during a given period, at a rate that substantially exceeds what is expected, based on recent experience (the number of new cases in the population during a...

In the Middle Ages the gangrenous poisoning was known as ignis sacer ("holy fire") or "Saint Anthony's fire", named after monks of the Order of St Anthony who were particularly successful at treating this ailment. The 12th century chronicler Geoffroy du Breuil of Vigeois recorded the mysterious outbreaks in the Limousin region of France, where the gangrenous form of ergotism was associated with the local Saint Martial as much as Saint Anthony. Saint Anthony the Great (251 - 356), also known as Saint Anthony of Egypt, Saint Anthony of the Desert, Saint Anthony the Anchorite, and The Father of All Monks, was an Egyptian Christian saint and the outstanding leader among the Desert Fathers, who were Christian monks in the Egyptian desert in... Geoffroy du Breuil of Vigeois was a 12th century French chronicler. ... Coat of arms of Limousin Limousin (Occitan: Lemosin) is a former province of France around the city of Limoges in central France. ... Saint Martial was the first bishop of Limoges, in todays France , according to a life of Saturninus, first bishop of Toulouse, which Gregory of Tours quotes in his Life That is all that is known and it may be summed up thus: Under the Emperor Decius and of Gratus...

The blight, named from the cock's spur it forms on grasses, was identified and named by Denis Dodart who reported the relation between ergotized rye and bread poisoning in a letter to the French Royal Academy of Sciences in 1676 (John Ray mentioning ergot for the first time in English the next year), but "ergotism" in this modern sense was first recorded in 1853. Louis XIV visiting the Académie in 1671 The French Academy of Sciences (Académie des sciences) is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research. ... John Ray. ...

Research by Linnda Caporael (1976) suggests that many of the people whose accusations resulted in the 1692 Salem witch trials in Massachusetts were genuinely suffering hallucinations and other symptoms of convulsive ergotism. 1876 illustration of the courtroom The Salem witch trials of colonial America resulted in a number of convictions and executions for witchcraft in 1692 in Massachusetts, the result of a period of factional infighting and Puritan paranoia which led to the deaths of at least twenty-five people and the...

Similar eruptions of ergotism also occurred in Essex and Fairfield counties in Connecticut that damp and cool season, though in Connecticut no one went to the gallows. Notable epidemics of ergotism, at first seen as a punishment from God, occurred up into the 19th century. Fewer outbreaks have occurred since then, because in developed countries rye is carefully monitored. Binomial name Secale cereale M.Bieb. ...

When milled the ergot is reduced to a red powder, obvious in lighter grasses but easy to miss in dark rye flour. In less wealthy countries ergotism still occurs: there was an outbreak in Ethiopia in mid-2001 from contaminated barley. Whenever there is a combination of moist weather, cool temperatures, delayed harvest in lowland crops and rye consumption an outbreak is possible. Russia has been particularly afflicted. Binomial name Hordeum vulgare L. Barley (Hordeum vulgare) is a major food and animal feed crop, a member of the grass family Poaceae. ...

Poisonings due to consumption of seeds treated with mercury compounds are sometimes misidentified as ergotism, such as the case of mass-poisoning in the French village Pont-Saint-Esprit in 1951: General Name, Symbol, Number mercury, Hg, 80 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 12, 6, d Appearance silvery Atomic mass 200. ... Pont-Saint-Esprit is a commune of southern France, in the Gard d partement. ...

The mass poisoning which took place in the French town of Pont-St. Esprit in 1951 has been widely pressented in the lay and scientific press as an example of ergotism. While the poisoning was traced to bread, ergotism was not the cause of the syndrome, which was due to a toxic mercury compound used to disinfect grain to be planted as seed. Some sacks of grain treated with the fungicide were inadvertently ground into flour and baked into bread. Albert Hofmann arrived at this conclusion after visiting Pont-St. Esprit, and analyzing samples of the bread (which contained no ergot alkaloids) and autopsy samples of four of the victims who succumbed (Hofmann 1980; Hofmann 1991). On the other hand, Swedish toxicologist Bo Holmstedt insists the poisoning was in fact due to ergotism (Holmstedt 1978). ...^[1]

Dr. Dr. Albert Hofmann (born January 11, 1906) is a prominent Swiss scientist best known as the father of LSD. He was born in Baden, Switzerland, and studied chemistry at the University of Zürich. ...

See also

• Ergot
• Ergolines
• Alkaloids

Species About 50, including: Claviceps africanum Claviceps fusiformis Claviceps paspali Claviceps purpurea Ergot is the common name of a fungus in the genus Claviceps that is parasitic on certain grains and grasses. ... Chemical structure of ergoline Ergoline is a chemical compound whose structure serves as the skeleton for a diverse range of alkaloids and synthetic drugs. ... Diagram of Ephedrine An alkaloid, strictly speaking, is a naturally-occurring amine produced by a plant,[1] but amines produced by animals and fungi are also called alkaloids. ...

References

1. ^ Jonathan Ott, Pharmacotheon: Entheogenic Drugs, their Plant Sources and History (Kennewick, W.A.: Natural Products Co., 1993), pg. 145. See also Dr. Albert Hofmann, LSD: My Problem Child (New York, N.Y.: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1980), Chapter 1: "How LSD Originated," pg. 6.
   .
   As Dr. Simon Cotton (member of the Chemistry Department of Uppingham School, U.K.) notes, there have been numerous cases of mass-poisoning due to consumption of mercury-treated seeds:

   More horrifying than this were epidemics of poisoning, caused by people eating treated seed grains. There was a serious epidemic in Iraq in 1956 and again in 1960, whilst use of seed wheat (which had been treated with a mixture of C₂H₅HgCl and C₆H₅HgOCOCH₃) for food, caused the poisoning of about 100 people in West Pakistan in 1961. Another outbreak happened in Guatemala in 1965. Most serious was the disaster in Iraq in 1971-2, when according to official figures 459 died. Grain had been treated with methyl mercury compounds as a fungicide and should have been planted. Instead it was sold for milling and made into bread. It had been dyed red as a warning and also had warning labels in English and Spanish that no one could understand.

   See Simon Cotton, B.Sc., Ph.D., "Dimethylmercury and Mercury Poisoning", Molecule of the Month (MOTM; published on the School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, U.K. website), October 2003.

• George Barger, "Ergot and ergotism," 1931. Abstract.
• Linnda Caporael, "Ergotism: the Satan loosed in Salem?," Science 1976;192:21-6. Fulltext. PMID 769159.
• John Grant Fuller, The Day of St Anthony's Fire (1968). Pont St. Esprit incident of 1951.

This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... Dr. Dr. Albert Hofmann (born January 11, 1906) is a prominent Swiss scientist best known as the father of LSD. He was born in Baden, Switzerland, and studied chemistry at the University of Zürich. ... Uppingham School is one of the most famous co-educational English public schools in Britain. ... General Name, Symbol, Number mercury, Hg, 80 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 12, 6, d Appearance silvery Atomic mass 200. ... The University of Bristol is a university in Bristol, England. ... Science is the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). ...

External links

• "Bad Rye and the Salem Witches