RYE. 155 



ness, and be lighter and more grateful to the 

 taste ; and the bread so prepared is, by ad- 

 vice of the physicians, much used by persons 

 of quality, especially in summer. 



Rye bread is now but little used in any 

 part of these dominions, owing to the atten- 

 tion that has been given to agricultural pur- 

 suits, and which has so changed the nature of 

 things, that there is now (1821) a complaint 

 of our being blessed with too much corn, and 

 bread at too low a price. Long may we hear 

 this complaint, rather than return to a de- 

 pendence on neighbouring states for a scanty 

 supply of rye bread, the use of which has in 

 many instances brought on dreadful and even 

 contagious complaints. 



Rye is subject to a disease producing what 

 the French call Ergot, which often happens 

 when a rainy spring is succeeded by a 

 hot summer. Bread made of this, called 

 by the English farmers Horned rye, has a 

 nauseous acrid taste, and produces spas- 

 modic and gangrenous disorders. In 1596, 

 an epidemic disease prevailed in Hesse, 

 which the physicians ascribed to bread made 

 of horned rye. Some, we are told, were 

 seized with an epilepsy, and these seldom re- 

 covered ; others became lunatic, and con- 



