24 MICEOBES, FERMENTS, AND MOULDS. 



individual. In countries where rye bread constitutes 

 the chief food of the rural populations, as in Brabant, 

 the north of France, OrMannais and Le Blaisois, fatal 

 epidemics have been recorded at different times in the 

 Middle Ages, under the name of St. Anthony's fire. 

 The first symptoms are a species of intoxication, sought 

 after by the peasants, and becoming habitual, like 

 alcoholic drunkenness, up to the moment when con- 

 vulsions and gangrene set in, and death soon follows. 



Ergot of maize produces analogous phenomena. In 

 countries where maize bread and cakes are in use, 

 as in Italy and South America, it appears to be the 

 cause of the disease improperly called Pelade. Of this 

 the shedding of the hair and skin is the first symptom.* 

 Fowls which feed on ergotized maize lay eggs which are 

 devoid of shell, owing to their premature expulsion 

 from the uterus; their combs become black, shrivel, 

 and finally drop off; and they even shed their beaks. 

 All these phenomena may be easily explained by the 

 action of ergot on the muscular fibres of the uterus, 

 and of the blood-vessels. 



Eecent research has shown that Pelade is identical 

 in its cause and external symptoms with the disease 

 known in northern Italy and in the south of France as 

 pellagra, and in Spain as the rose sickness. The latter 



♦ We stall presently see that the name Pelade was formerly given 

 to another parasitic affection, peculiar to that part of the skin covered 

 ■with hair. These two diseases must not he confounded, notwithstand- 

 ing the similarity of name, since they are produced by two fungi 

 belonging to different groups. 



