PRODUCTION OF ERGOT IN WHEAT, RYE, ETC. 271 
composed of two portions of different character, viz., the 
base of the grain, and the grain itselt ; the base, he says, is a 
true mushroom or fungus, to which he gives the name of 
spJtacelaria segetum , on account of the property which he 
attributes to it, of producing gangrene when taken into the 
human stomach for any length of time. This fungus shows 
itself at the detached extremity of the spur, in the form of a 
yellowish substance, of a conical shape, varying in size, and 
the surface covered over with very minute irregular undula- 
tions ; the base occupies the whole of the external extremity 
of the spurred ovary. 
M. Leveille has shown that this disease, sphacelaria fungus, 
may be detected at the base of other spurs attached to 
grasses, wheat, &c. ; and that at Sologne, in France, during 
rainy seasons, it is observed that the crops of rye are much 
more subject to the attack, whilst elsewhere it is only met 
with in few places. Near Paris, the ergot is seen on dry, 
sandy soils. 
The rye, when attacked with the spur, first becomes soft, 
soon bursts out of its husk, attains solidity, lengthening 
itself, becomes of a reddish colour, which changes to a dark 
violet. Its increase is very rapid, and becomes out of all 
proportion to the rest of the spike ; a few only of the grains 
in an ear may become ergotted, sometimes only one, and 
these certainly will not vegetate. I have often found from 
one to four spurred grains in an ear of rye, and no other 
grains ; but there will often be found sound ones with the 
diseased. 
The ergot is used by medical men in various ways — as a 
pow T der, as a decoction or injection, or otherwise, at a 
period when there is a difficult child-birth ; and it 
has also been used with great success at such times upon the 
lower animals. But professors are yet very much in the 
dark as to the exact manner in which this remedy acts 
during parturition. All that is known for certain is, that 
this singular effect arises from its awakening and deter- 
mining the muscular contractions of the uterus, when they 
become enfeebled or suspended during the course of child- 
birth, acting very quickly. 
Mr. Sydney, in his little work, published by the Reli- 
gious Tract Society, “ Blights of the Wheat and their Reme- 
dies ” has said, with respect to this disease of the ergot, that 
“ In the whole range of our physiological knowledge, we do 
not find a more wonderful instance of a natural chemical 
transformation, or transmutation, under certain circum- 
stances, than the present. By the agency of some unknown 
