270 PRODUCTION OF ERGOT IN WHEAT, RYE, ETC. 
months, but she continued to live; of the six children, three 
boys and three girls, all were affected in a similar way, with 
the legs, feet, and hands, dropping off from mortification ; 
and all died in a few weeks after the attack. 
It appears that an accurate inquiry was instituted at the 
time into all the circumstances which might in any way be 
supposed to have brought on the disorder; that no rye had 
been used by this family. The persons who investigated 
this case, were struck by the circumstance, that the family 
were in the habit of using two bushels of revet-wheat, per 
week, and that this was supplied by a farmer near ; the crop 
had been much laid and injured by a bad harvest ; it had 
been kept away from the rest of his stock, the grain was dis- 
coloured, it made bad bread and worse puddings; and but 
one other man in the village had been injured by it. The 
Professor considers that the symptoms of disease in this 
family, being so similar to the effects of rye on the animal 
economy, that it is highly probable to be occasioned by 
that disease in the wheat they had used for puddings and 
bread. 
This most venomous poison is to be found amongst the 
wheat much more often than is generally supposed; but 
when they are not grown any longer than the sound grains, 
they are not noticed. Professor Henslow remarks — “ I have 
found it this autumn in four different fields of wheat, and 
gathered more than a dozen specimens. I find some farmers 
are sufficiently acquainted with it to satisfy me that it must 
be more common in wheat than has hitherto been sus- 
pected.” Upon asking a miller to search for me, he very 
soon picked out about three dozen ergots from two bushels 
of revet-wheat, which had been sent to be ground at his 
mill; and he said that he had left at least as many more in 
the sample. This wheat was grown in the next parish to 
Wattingham, where the family were all poisoned, as described 
above. 
This diseased grain is a highly esteemed and valuable 
medicine in skilful hands, but much too dangerous in its 
application to be trifled with by ignorant practitioners. 
This ergot attack on the grain of wheat, rye, and the 
lower grasses, is another of those enigmas to which we are 
now only approaching a knowledge of; like unto the 
uredo segetum , we know not for certain what is the cause, or 
how the disease is conveyed to the grain. The most pro- 
bable is that suggested by a French physician, named Le- 
veille, he having observed the spurred rye at different stages 
of its growth ; he discovered that this vegetable substance is 
