EXPERIMENTS. 101 



which professor Henslow gives a most striking 

 account in his valuable notice of this disease ; 

 to which he adds a proper caution against 

 their repetition now the question is settled. 

 Animals which refused ergot mixed with their 

 food have been compelled to swallow it, and it 

 reduced them to a wretched condition. It was 

 tried upon pigs, and also upon poultry, and the 

 consequences were sickness, gangrene, and in- 

 flammatory action so intense, that the flesh 

 actually sloughed away. In some cases, the 

 limbs rotted off, and no description of animal 

 suffering has ever exceeded the direful ills thus 

 inflicted. These experiments were made with 

 a view to determine whether the ergot of rye, 

 constantly ground up with the flour in some 

 parts of France, might not be the cause of the 

 gangrenous diseases so prevalent amongst the 

 poor in certain districts. The symptoms of 

 these epidemic diseases are dreadful, and there 

 seems to be very little doubt that the suspicions 

 as to their originating from ergotted flour of 

 rye are correct. Tessier, who has paid great 

 attention to the subject, mentions a case which 

 came under his own observation. A family 

 were in a state of great destitution, and the 

 father begged of a neighbouring farmer a 



