374 
ON ERGOT. 
several cases in which the upper and lower extremities of the 
patients became “as dry as touchwood, and as emaciated as 
those of Egyptian mummies.” Of thirty patients seen by 
M. Noel in one season, at the Hotel Dieu of Orleans, “some 
lost only their toes, others their feet at the ankle-joints, others 
the whole of their legs; and in one case, communicated to 
the Academy of Medicine, the lower extremities separated 
from the trunk at the hip-joints, the heads of the thigh-bones 
disarticulating from the acetabula .” From this fearful state 
the sufferer recovered, and it is stated to have suggested that 
important surgical operation—amputation at the hip-joint. 
Many more similar cases are recorded. The disease has 
been designated dry gangrene or gangrenous ergotism . 
“ A calamity so serious,” says Sir Gilbert Burnett, “ could 
not fail to attract public attention, and stimulate the curiosity 
of medical men.” In the investigations that were instituted 
it was found that animals of every kind, except man, refused 
in general to partake of the grain when affected with the 
spur, and those that were forced to swallow it were observed 
to die of gangrene, which attacked different parts of their 
bodies. Such animals as could eject the ergot by vomiting 
appeared to be little affected by it, but others sooner or later 
died from it; the symptoms in the first instance being- 
giddiness with dilated pupil, followed by palsy, and s< after¬ 
wards diarrhoea, suppurating tumours, scattered gangrene 
throughout the body, and sometimes dropping off of the toes.” 
Yet when the spurred grain bears only a small proportion 
to that which is sound, the mixed grain may be partaken of 
with impunity, a result which has been attributed to the 
function of the stomach causing the digestion of the poison¬ 
ous principle when it is enveloped in much nutrient matter. 
This, perhaps, is also to be assigned as the reason why, 
according to Block, twenty sheep ate together nine pounds 
of spurred rye daily for four weeks without any ill effects ; and 
in another instance twenty sheep consumed thirteen pounds 
and a half daily, for two months, without injury. Thirty 
cows took together twenty-seven pounds daily, for three 
months, with impunity; and two fat cows ate, in addition, 
nine pounds daily, with no other obvious effect than that 
their milk gave a bad caseous cream, which of course did not 
yield good butter. Similar results follow in the herbivora with 
other vegetable poisons, as the yew, laurel, savin, &c.; large 
quantities being often required to destroy life. 
It may possibly be said, that after all we have stated 
nothing definite, nothing that is new, nor is it decided 
whether the ergot is an agent to be depended upon or not. If 
