•210 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1705. 



grains as large as a hen's egg, (quae ovum gallinaceum aequabant) full of a 

 black, fcBtid, sanious powder, interposed between various lamellae. 



The caries (which by the French is commonly called nielle) infects wheat, 

 barley, rye, and other plants, attacking not only the grain or seeds, but also 

 the flowers and leaves, under the form of a black, viscid powder, completely 

 enveloping the grain or flowers, and destroying whatsoever it touches. This 

 disease seems to attack the corn at the time when it is in flower, thereby pre- 

 venting the grain from ever coming to maturity. Dr. T. had by him several 

 ears of corn infected with the caries; they were completely covered with this 

 black powder, and were destitute of seed or grain, exhibiting nothing but 

 whitish glumes, with a fibrous substance in the middle of the glume, which 

 appeared to have been the fibrous part of the grain. This black powder had 

 very little smell or taste. 



According to Ginanni, the caries has been known from time immemorial; 

 but the charbon is a disease of modem times, and was never observed in Lom- 

 bardy before the year 1730, nor at Cesena before the year 1738. 



The secale cornutum (ergot) is a very difl^erent disease from the preceding. 

 It attacks rye, and 2 or 3 other graminaceous Alpine plants, according to the ob- 

 servations of Haller. It is an irregular vegetation of the rye-grain, which puts 

 on a middle nature between the grain and the leaf, becoming of a brownish- 

 green colour, irregularly compressed, and, according to Marchand and Vaillant, 

 frequently 14 or 15 lines long, and 2 lines broad. Langius, in particular, has 

 given a very accurate description of such vitiated rye, together with some 

 experiments concerning its nature. He found that, when put into the ground, 

 such seed never germinated; that it abounded most in rainy years, and when a 

 very hot summer followed a wet spring, (b) 



Here Dr. T. takes occasion to remark, after Ginanni (c) that many mistakes 

 have occurred among authors, owing to their confounding the rubigo with the 

 ustilago, and the ustilago with the rubigo. What Ramazzini has described as 

 the rubigo in the epiflemic constitution of 1692, he believes to have been the 

 true ustilago. 



A confusion of less moment has occurred in the names given to the secale 

 cornutum (spurred rye) ; which by some is called secale luxurians, by others 

 mater secalis, (the muttercorn of the Grermans) by others orga, and by Lan- 



(b) I^angius's treatise was published in the German tongue, at Lucerne, in 1717. The import 

 of the title is. An Account of the Disorders occasioned by eating spurred Rye (ex esu clavorum 

 secalinorum) in Bread. A good abstract of this work may be seen iu the Acta Eruditor. for tb« 

 year 1718. 



(c) Count Ginanni, author of a learned treatise entitled Delle Malattie del Grano Id Herba 4to. 

 Pesaro. 1759. 



