230 DISEASES OF FIELD & GARDEN CROPS. [CH. 



patients afflicted d'une gangrene seche, noire et livide, which 

 began at the toes and advanced more or less, being some- 

 times continued even to the thighs. He adds "he 

 observed that this disease affected the men only ; and that, 

 in general, the females, except some very young girls, 

 were free from it." 



In the same paper is mentioned, as a fact well known 

 to the Academy, the case of a peasant who lived near 

 Blois. In this patient a gangrene, at its first attack, 

 destroyed all the toes of one foot, then those of the other, 

 afterwards the remaining parts of both feet ; then the flesh 

 of both his legs and that of his thighs rotted off success- 

 ively, and left nothing but bare bones. 



The members of the Academy were of opinion that 

 the disease (of which M. Noel had sent an account) was 

 produced by bad nourishment, particularly by bread in 

 which there was a great quantity of ergot. This substance 

 is described by M. Fagon, first physician to the king, and 

 is said by him to be a " kind of monster in vegetation, 

 which a particular kind of rye sown in March is more apt to 

 produce than what is sown in the autumn, and which often 

 abounds in moist, cold countries and in wet seasons." 



Professor J. S. Henslow, in commenting on the Mattis- 

 hall case, in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society 

 of England, vol. ii., 1841, says there was no evidence 

 that the presence of ergot was suspected in the wheat 

 used, and although ergot is supposed seldom to attack 

 wheat, yet Professor Henslow says that he had found it 

 in 1841 in four different fields of wheat, and gathered 

 more than a dozen specimens. Some of the Suffolk 

 farmers were sufficiently acquainted with it to satisfy 

 Professor Henslow that ergot was more common on wheat 

 than was at that time commonly suspected. Upon asking 

 his miller to search, he soon picked out about three dozen 

 ergots from two bushels of revet wheat which had been 

 sent to be ground at his mill, and he said that he had left 

 at least as many more in the sample. This wheat was 



