156 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES. 



tinued stupid the rest of their lives : those 

 who apparently recovered, had annual re- 

 turns of their disorder, and the malady was 

 said to be contagious. Many other instances 

 are given of the same disease being occa- 

 sioned on the Continent by the use of this 

 bread, in the years 1648, 1675, 1716, 1720, 

 1722, and 1736: it has been minutely de- 

 scribed by Hoffman, Goerlicke, Vater Burg- 

 hart, and Srinck. 



In the year 1709 one fourth part of all the 

 rye raised in the neighbourhood of Salon, in 

 Provence, was horned ; and the surgeon to the 

 hospital d' Orleans had no less than 500 pa- 

 tients under his care, who were distempered 

 by eating it. The first symptom is described 

 as a kind of drunkenness, then the local dis- 

 order began in the toes, and thence extended 

 sometimes to the thigh, and the trunk itself 

 even after amputation. 



In the year 1710, the celebrated Fonte- 

 nelle describes a case in the History of the 

 Academy of Sciences of France, which 

 exactly resembles that of a poor family at 

 Wattisham. A peasant at Blois, who had 

 eaten horned rye in bread, was seized with a 

 mortification, which first caused all the toes 

 of one foot to fall off, then the toes of the 



