356 POISONOUS AND EDIBLE FUNGI 



an outbreak involved the inhabitants of several European coun- 

 tries, and subsequentlv there have been manv epidemics through- 

 out the whole of Europe, some of them widespread and all of them 

 producing horrible suffering and disfigurement. 



The date of the first use of ergot as a drug cannot be fixed, but 

 the first published mention of its use to induce uterine contrac- 

 tions occurs in Adam Lonicer's Kreuter bitch in 1582. The ergot 

 grains are therein described as "long, black, hard, narrow corn 

 pegs, internallv white, protruding like long nails from between 

 the grains in the ear," and three sclerotia are designated as consti- 

 tuting a dose. Subsequentlv for a period extending throughout 

 the eighteenth century midwives in various European countries 

 used ergot to expedite lingering parturition. Its use did not enter 

 into pharmaceutical practice, however, nor was it employed by 

 the medical practitioner. In the United States ergot was medically 

 introduced under the name of puhis parturiens early in the nine- 

 teenth century. 



Early writers were not in accord on the true nature of ergot. 

 Caspar Bauhin refers to it as Secale luxurious in his Fhytopinax, 

 published in 1596 [Barger (1931), p. 10]. Until the middle of the 

 nineteenth century many writers regarded eroot grains as degen- 

 erated kernels. Among the causes assigned for this degeneration 

 were improper nutrition, failure of the flowers to become fertil- 

 ized, injury from insects, and excessive rainfall. Fries (1822) 

 considered the ergot grain as a fungus structure; he gave it the 

 name Spervwedia davits but later (1849) changed this name to 

 Claviceps purpurea. Leveille (1827) observed that the sugary 

 secretions on young sclerotia contained conidia. Thinking that 

 the conidia were reproductive structures belonging to a fungus 

 parasitizing the sclerotia, he named this supposed parasite Sphacelia 

 segetum. He' (1842) maintained that the ergot itself was a de- 

 generated kernel. Mcvcn's observations (1841) on ergot led him 

 to conclude that the sclerotium is an early stage of the Sphacelia 

 segetum that Leveille had described nearly 15 years before. The 

 chapter on the nature of ergot was finally concluded by Tulasne 

 (1853), who established that the conidia, sclerotia, and perithecial 

 stromata constitute developmental stages of one and the same 

 fungus, which he called Claviceps purpurea (Fr.). 



The structure and development of Claviceps purpurea have been 

 recounted in some detail [Falck (1911), Stager (1903), Zimmer- 

 man (1906), Kirchhoff (1929), Killian (1919)]. This fungus at- 



