C 53 2 1 
are ftill benumbed, but not blaek. Her fingers are 
contracted. The reft of the family feem to be re- 
covering perfect health. 
Wattilhjun, 
April 30, 1762. 
There is, in I'HiJloire de I'Academie Roy ale des 
Sciences , for the year 1710, a paper, the title of 
which is, Sur le * bled cornu appelle Ergot. Here it 
is faid, that M. Noel, furgeon of the Hotel-Dieu at 
Orleans, had lent an account to a member of the 
academy, that, within about a year s time, he had 
received into the hofpital more than fifty patients af- 
flicted d'une gangrene feche , noire, et livide , which 
began at the toes, and advanced more or lefs, being 
fometimes continued even to the thighs ; and that he 
had only feen one patient, who had been firft feized 
with it in the hand. He adds, that he obferved, that 
this difeafe affeded the men only j and that, in ge- 
neral, the females, except fome very young girls, 
were quite free from it. 
In the fame paper is mentioned, as a fad well 
known to the academy, the cafe of a peafant, who 
lived near Blois. In this patient, a gangrene, at its 
firfi: attack, deftroyed all the toes of one foot, then 
thole of the other, afterwards the remaining parts of 
both feet ; then the flelh of both his legs, and that 
of his thighs, rotted off" fuccefiively, and left nothing 
but bare bones. 
* Secale corniculatum nigrum, ificntioned as a poifon by 
Hoffman. 
