PARASITIC FUNGI AND MOULDS. 23. 
the ergot of wheat should be used in medicine; it is 
larger, harder, and more elongated in form, and it also 
appears to be less perishable. 
Ergot of rye, especially when powdered, strongly 
resembles meat in smell, and only becomes unpleasant 
when the powder is spoiled by being kept in a damp 
place; it then smells like rotten fish, and this is the 
case with many other fungi. 
At first the taste is not very apparent, but it after- 
wards produces on the pharynx a somewhat persistent 
sense of constriction. The chief action of this drug 
consists in producing contraction of unstriated muscu- 
lar fibres, especially those of the uterus. Ergotine 
and ergotinine are extracted from it, and these, which 
are its active principles, are often employed in thera- 
peutics in preference to raw ergot. 
In large doses ergot is a strong poison. It then 
produces characteristic symptoms, dilatation of the 
pupils, retardation of the circulation, vertigo, stupor, 
and even death. 
Bread made with flour from which the ergot has 
not been extracted may produce the grave symptoms 
known as ergotism, and these soon become fatal unless 
the use of such bread is discontinued. Sometimes 
nervous symptoms predominate, and this is termed 
convulsive ergotism ; sometimes the disease takes the 
form of gangrene of the extremities, or gangrenous 
ergotism, but these two forms are only two phases of 
one and the same disease, and often occur in the same 
