174 FLORA HOMCEOPATHICA. 



The most remarkable effects observed on the healthy body 

 are those produced by the use of this substance for some time 

 in food ; and in the human race two distinct diseas-es are referred 

 to its protracted use. One has been designated Convulsive 

 Ergotism, which, in its most acute form, commences suddenly, 

 and is attended with dimness of sight, giddiness, and loss of 

 sensibility, followed soon by dreadful cramps and convulsions 

 of the whole body, risus sardonicus, yellowness of the coun- 

 tenance, excessive thirst, excruciating pains in the limbs and 

 chest, small, often imperceptible pulse; frequently ending 

 fatally in forty-eight hours. In the milder cases the convul- 

 sions come on m paroxysms, preceded for some days by weak- 

 ness and weight of the limbs, and a strange feeling as of insects 

 crawling over the body, legs, arms, and face. In the interval 

 of the fits, the appetite is voracious, the pulse natural, the ex- 

 cretions regular, and the disease either terminates in recovery, 



with scattered suppurations, cutaneous eruptions, anasarca, or 

 diarrhoea. 



The other form of disease has been named Gang 

 Ergotism by the French writers, and the Creeping Sickness by 

 the Germans ; commencing with general weakness, weariness, and 

 sense of creeping, followed by cold, white, stiff, and benumbed 

 extremities, and after a time so insensible that they might be 

 cut without sense of feeling ; excruciating pains in the extre- 



mes 



mities come on, with fever, headache, and bleeding of the 

 nose; finally, the affected parts of the limbs shrivel, dry up, 

 and drop off by the joints. A healthy granulation succeeds, 

 but the powers of life were generally exhausted before that 

 stage is reached; the appetite continues voracious through- 



out. 



ymptom 



eakness 



voracity, 



and dyspepsia, which, if not followed by recovery, either ter- 

 minated in fatuity or fatal gangrene. 



Its effects on the uterus, in producing the contractions of the 

 muscular tissue, have been brought to bear in cases of difficult 



