16 



On the Diseases of Wheat. 



from its nostrils at the end of five days ; the beak soon afterwards 

 changed colour, and the tongue rotted at the extremity ; the animal 

 died in ten days, after having taken, altogether, one ounce and seven 

 grains of Ergot. In a turkey, the ill effects began to show them- 

 selves in seven days, and it died at the end of twenty-two days, 

 having eaten eight ounces and four grains of Ergot. A pig died 

 in twenty-three days, having eaten one pound two ounces of Ergot, 

 which it was found very difficult to disguise in its food sufficiently 

 to induce it to eat. With another pig the experiment lasted for 

 sixty- eight days, and the animal had eaten twenty- two pounds six 

 ounces of Ergot in that time : this formed about one-eighth the 

 whole quantity of foo*d with which it had been supplied. The 

 effects produced in this last case were very decided ; the joints of 

 the legs became gangrenous, as well as the ears, and the flesh from 

 the tail sloughed off. The importance, and propriety of making 

 these experiments, will be readily admitted, when it is known that 

 they were underlaken expressly to test the probability of ergotted 

 rye-bread being the cause of dangerous gangrenous epidemics 

 among the poor, in certain districts of France. The details of the 

 sufferings to which these persons are occasionally subjected are 

 shocking to humanity. Their extremities rot off ; and some have 

 been known to lose all their limbs, which, in the progress of the 

 disorder fell off at the joints, before the shapeless trunk was 

 released from its torment. In one instance recorded by Tessier, 

 a poor man, whose family were in a state of starvation, ventured 

 to make bread of some ergotted rye which he had begged of a 

 farmer, but had been cautioned by him against using it. It killed 

 himself, his wife and five out of seven of his children. Of the 

 two which recovered from the effects of the Ergot, one became 

 deaf and dumb, and had one of its legs drop off. I felt in- 

 terested, whilst pursuing these researches, with an account pre- 

 served in the register of a neighbouring parish, Wattisham, 

 which I shall venture to transcribe into this report ; because it 

 seemed to me probable, as soon as I first heard of the circum- 

 stance, that the effects there recorded may have been due to the 

 presence of Ergot. 



" Extract from the parish register of Wattisham, Svffolk.''^ 

 " The following is a circumstantial narrative of a very extraordinary 

 and singular case that happened in this parish, A.D. 1762 : — 



" On Sunday, January 10, 1762, Mary, daughter of John Weather- 

 set, alias Downing, aged 16 years, was taken with a pain in her left 

 leg, which in an hour or two sunk into her foot and toes ; the next day 

 her toes were much swelled, and black spots appeared upon them. By 

 degrees the whole foot became swelled and black ; the pain, which was 

 now chiefly in her toes, was, she said, as if dogs were gnawing them; 

 the blackness and swelling increased upwards, by sbw degrees, till it 



