134 PRIZE ESSAY: 



America, and a considerable quantity is exported to Europe for 

 medicinal purposes besides that required for home consumptiqn, 

 which, it is stated, forms by no means an insignificant item of the 

 annual production for medicinal and other purposes of this curi- 

 ous and dangerous substance. Ergot is common in maize. In 

 South America mules fed on this diseased grain are said to lose 

 their hoofs and hair. In France the consumption of ergoted 

 rye-bread has often filled villages and hamlets with the most 

 painful records of the diseases it is capable of engendering. 



241(). Dr. R. G. Latham found ergot on eighteen species 

 of grasses, and over large areas in 1842. It is commonest on 

 the Lolium perenne, rarest on the Hordeum murinum. The 

 Pheums and Fescues are very subject to it, so is the Dactylis 

 glomerata ; in other words, some of the best pasture grasses. 

 The Cynosurus cristatus is remarkably free from it.W 



(1) Rep. of the British Association, 1845. 



