St.Anthony's Fire

[Morgan]

Here is something which came up in conversation today..

I'm in no way saying that this is even remotely related to what we have
but it is an old fascinating fungal disease which has been around for quite a long time which played havoc in many peoples lives before the cause was discovered by accident.

The fungal infection was referred to as "St. Anthony's Fire" which is actually a fungal infection of Ergot or Clauiceps purpurea which is a fungus of wheat and rye. Read on. I apologize if someone has previously posted this subject, as there seems to be nothing new under the sun these days. lol

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St. Anthony's Fire - TIME

Monday, Sep. 10, 1951
St. Anthony's Fire

Not in years had France seen such rain. Farmers slogged stolidly out to their fields to harvest the sodden crops, mill the grain and send it on its way. In little (pop. 4,400) Pont-Saint-Esprit, perched on a bluff along the River Rhone in southern France, the townspeople sat glumly in their bistros sipping wine, watching the swollen river slip past the medieval bridge which gives the town its name.

Then, without warning, pain and sudden death clutched Pont-Saint-Esprit. On a Saturday night three weeks ago, the town's doctors began getting calls from people complaining of heartburn, stomach cramps and fever chills. At first, they thought it was a mild epidemic of meat poisoning. But the calls kept flooding in. By Monday, 70 houses in the village had become tiny hospitals, with most of their families in bed. Then the doctors found their first clue: every one of the patients had eaten bread from the shop of Baker Roch Briand. All eight of Pont-Saint-Esprit's bakeries were ordered temporarily shut.

Red Flowers & Molten Lead. That night the first man died in convulsions. Later, two men who had seemed to be recovering dashed through the narrow streets shouting that enemies were after them. A small boy tried to throttle his mother. Gendarmes went from house to house, collecting pieces of the deadly bread to be sent to Marseille for analysis. Among the stricken, delirium rose: patients thrashed wildly on their beds, screaming that red flowers were blossoming from their bodies, that their heads had turned to molten lead. Pont-Saint-Esprit's hospital reported four attempts at suicide.

What was the mysterious madness? Pont-Saint-Esprit speculated that the village idiot had hexed Baker Briand's flour, that the flour had been packed in fertilizer sacks, that rats in the grain elevator had contaminated the flour. The police knew better. They had traced the flour back from Briand's bakeshop through the government-controlled flour depot to a mill near Poitiers, nearly 300 miles away.

The Parasite. Last week the word came back from the police laboratory:"We have identified a vegetable alkaloid having the toxic and biological characteristics of ergot, a cereal parasite." Pont-Saint-Esprit had been stricken by ergot poisoning, a medieval disease as old as its proud bridge, so old that it had almost been forgotten. Modern medicine knows about ergot, but has rarely seen it in the form of an epidemic disease.* It is a black fungus that grows on wet grain, contains chemicals that powerfully affect the blood vessels and the nervous system. Doctors often use ergot extracts to start contractions in the uterus in childbirth.

In the Middle Ages, growing uncontrolled in wet summers, ergot was no such helpful friend. The disease was called "St. Anthony's Fire," and raged periodically through Europe. Monastic chroniclers wrote of agonizing burning sensations, of feet and hands blackened like charcoal, of vomiting, convulsions and death. Whole villages were driven mad. That, in effect, was what had happened to Pont-Saint-Esprit in 1951.

By week's end, French police had found the miller who ground the ergot-laden rye and a man who acknowledged selling him the grain, charged them both with involuntary homicide. In Pont-Saint-Esprit, the toll of illness passed 200; four had died, 28 were still on the critical list. France considered itself lucky: all the contaminated grain seemed to have gone into that one bag of flour delivered to Baker Roch Briand.


* The last verified epidemic in France was in 1816. It has never been reported in the U.S.
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More information on Ergot (fungus).

PP-551 Ergot
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All for now,

Morgan

[carla]

OMG Morgan ,That is weird .
Heres another weird thing I just seen . I don't know whats going on here but she reckons if she cuts the wires they retract into her body.
Is someone trying to make us look stupid do you think?

YouTube - manusia kawat

[Baraka Obam]

Some here are losing skin on hands and feet, redness and burning. Then you remember the model who had her feet and hands cut off and died still. This malady lives in the arms legs and head mostly from what I see. Maybe the swelling it causes is actually what cut down the blood flow. I know it swells the nerve in the arm so big INSTANTLY that it caused me carple tunnel. Who knows but if it can afflict a nerve, I think it could also possibly swell a blood vessel.

[Sadsack]

You know that LSD is a chemical equivalent of the naturallly occurring rye fungus.
SS

[Baraka Obam]

They were tripping to death, holy moly. That has to be a very strange way to die!!!! I have had red flowers growing out of my head for years also I think I was accuse of having lead in my head also.

[Kritters]

Thanks for posting that, Morgan.

"They had traced the flour back from Briand's bakeshop through the government-controlled flour depot to a mill near Poitiers, nearly 300 miles away." Interesting. And it's never been reported in the US. Interesting again.

Kritters