SECALE C0RNUTUM. 169 



vosum contractio] — Sigebert, Bee. des Hist, des Gaules de la 

 France ; (Pei*eira 9 op. cit.) 



The first botanical writer who notices Ergot is Lonicerus. 

 It seems to have been employed by women to promote labour- 

 pains, long before its powers were known to the profession. 

 Camerarius, in 1683, mentions that it was a popular remedy in 

 Germany for accelerating parturition. In Italy and France 

 also it appears to have been long in use (Idem). 



Ergot first attracted the attention of physicians in 1596, as a 

 cause of epidemic disease in Hessia ; and although its medicinal 

 properties seem to have been known in Germany since at least 

 the middle of the subsequent century, they did not become 

 familiar to professional men till the publication of the essays of 

 Desgranges in 1777, and more especially of Stearns and of 

 Fresco tt, of the United States, thirty years later (Christison). 



Description.* — When we examine a number of ears of 

 ergotized Rye, we find that the number of grains in each spike 

 which have become ergotized varies considerably; there may 

 be one only, or the spike may be covered with them ; usually 

 the number is from three to ten. The mature Ergot projects 

 considerably beyond the paleae. It has a violet-black colour, 

 and presents scarcely any filaments and sporidia. The spurred 

 Bye, or Ergot of commerce, consists of grains, which vary in 

 length from a few lines to an inch and a half, and whose 

 breadth is from half a line to four lines. Their form is cylin- 

 drical or obscurely triangular, with obtuse angles, tapering at 

 the extremities (fusiform), curved like the spur of a cock, 

 unequally furrowed on two sides, often irregularly cracked and 

 fissured. The odour of a single grain is not detectable, but of 

 a large quantity is fishy, peculiar, and nauseous. The taste is 

 not very marked, but is disagreeable and very slightly acrid. 

 The grains are externally purplish-brown or black, more or 

 less covered by a bloom, moderately brittle; the fractured 



Pereira 



" Elements of Materia Medica and Therapeutics." 



