50 CONTAGIOUS DISEASES OF DOMESTICATED ANIMALS. 



dajs and then replaced by some free from ergot. The animal died four 

 days later ; there was no gangrene of the feet. Read fed a pig three 

 months old for fifteen days with ergoted wheat mixed with bran. 

 Gangrene seized the left ear on the seventeenth day and it dropped oft". 

 The pig died two days later with convulsions. A gangrenous spot was 

 found on the liver. (A. Tardy. De V Ergotism, Paris, 1858.) 



Fleming, in his Manual of Veterinary Sanitary Science and Police, 

 (Vol. T, p. 65), says: "The ergot on rye, wheat, &c., has also given rise 

 to extensive disease in man and animals, including birds, marked by 

 convulsions, paralysis, dry gangrene of the limbs, loss of hair and horn, 

 and other strange phenomena." 



M. Tabourin, in his Noueeau Traite de Matiere Medicale de Therapeut- 

 ique et de Pharmcwie Veterinaires, Paris, 1866, gives the following de- 

 scription of the action of ergot (pp. 448 to 450) : 



The effects of ergot of rye slioukl be divided into mediciual and toxic. 



Medicinal effects. — The action that ergot of rj'e exercises on the natural surfaces and 

 on the denuded tissues has been very little studied with animals, but appears to be 

 slio'htly irritating ; with man it has been noticed that the aqueous extract arrests 

 capillary hemorrhages with considerable rapidity, and that it has a manifestly as- 

 triuo-ent action on denuded tissues. In the digestive tube the effects are but little 

 marked when the medicine is given in small doses; it is only when the quantifies in- 

 gested are considerable that vomiting occurs Avith carnivora and a serious irritation 

 of the intestines with ail animals. In regard to the dynamic or gcTieral effects pro- 

 duced by the ergot of rye in medicinal doses, when its active principles have been 

 absorbed, they are almost unnoticeable with healthy animals and have been only very 

 imperfectly studied up to this time. It follows, however, from the trials undertaken 

 by various authors on the greater part of the domestic animals, that this medicine 

 produces with them as with man two effects somewhat opposed to each other: a 

 very pronounced sedative action on the circulatory center, and an energetic stimula- 

 tion of the nervous centers .and particularly of the posterior portion of the spinal 

 cord. We will return to these two culminating effects of ergot of rye in connection 

 with the toxic action that it has on the organism which we are now about to study. 



Toxic effects — The poisoning of animals by ergot of rye is called ergotism. It may 

 occur at the end of a longer or shorter time, according to Aarious circumstances and 

 particularly according as the ergot is given alone or mixed with the food. In the 

 former case, it occurs after a few days with birds, and after weeks or even months 

 with mammals, according to the size of the doses and the time between them. In the 

 second case it is much slower still, and when its existence is manifested by apparent 

 phenomena the destruction of the organism is already consummated and there is no 

 meaus of providing a remedy for it. This is a remarkable example of chronic or slow 

 poisoning. 



The characteristic signs of ergotism are of two varieties. One of these is due to the 

 uarcotico-acxid and exciting action that the ergot exercises on the nerve centers ; the 

 other is due to the sedative action that it produces on the heart. When the former 

 predominates, as has been observed with certain epidemics with the human species, 

 the ergotism is called convulsive; when, on tlie contrary, the second is more pro- 

 nounced the ergotism is called gangrenous. It is difficult to establish this distinction 

 with animals where tlie sigus of the two varieties are mixed in nearly ecjual propor- 

 tion as we shall demonstrate. 



1. Soli^ndH. — Of all the domestic animals, the solipeds are the least exposed to poison- 

 ing by ergot of rye, because oats, tht^ grain they receive most often, is rarely affected 

 with this alteration. Only two authors, MM.'Ilertwig and Parola, have made experi- 



