EFFECTS OF FUNGI. 77 



those at the festival who dined on bread and cheese, es- 

 caped all disorder. 



Diseased wheat (Phil. Trans. , Lond. 1762,) produced 

 at Wattisham, a sickness with sphacelation. Seven per- 

 sons of one family suffered the loss of one or more of their 

 limbs, and one had a blackness of two fingers, but re- 

 covered. 



The febrile disease from the use of rye is, according to 

 Thompson, (Lect. on Infl.) most prevalent in wet or moist 

 seasons, and in thirty-three years, M. Noel met with this 

 malady three or four times, and always in rainy and moist 

 seasons. He also says, that among fifty patients, he did 

 not find one woman; and he makes the very curious state- 

 ment, that only the, poor and ill-fed were its victims. 



Pereira describes almost choleric effects of the poison 

 of fungi, when he states, that in some cases, the powers 

 of the vascular system were "remarkably suppressed, the 

 pulse being small and feeble, the extremities cold, and the 

 body covered with a cold sweat.' 1 



It may not be disadvantageous to insert, in this place, 

 the description of a yellow fever which became epidemic 

 in the U. S. Frigate Macedonian. It was given under 

 oath to a court martial by Surgeon Chase. " There were 

 pains in the head, loins, and limbs, tenderness at the epi- 

 gastrium and sometimes in the fauces; nausea, vomiting, 

 diarrhoea or constipation ; the face was flushed, and some- 

 times swollen, the pulse was either frequent and full or 

 slow and small; the eyes were red and watery, the mind 

 was dejected; and there was, ab initio, low delirium or 

 violent madness." 



The famous sweating sickness usually commenced with 

 a short shivering fit, which, in malignant cases, convulsed 

 even the extremities. Many experienced, at the beginning, 



