This fact led to the rise in popularity of wheat bread, which is resistant to ergot mold.
Even so, in the seventeenth century it was discovered that ergot-containing bread was the cause of the poisonings. Until quite recently, outbreaks of ergot poisoning approaching epidemic proportions were recorded in most European countries including certain areas of Russia. It can cause gangrene, the loss of limbs and even be lethal. The first mention of a medicinal use of ergot, as a drug to precipitate childbirth, is found in the notes of the Frankfurt city physician Adam Lonitzer in 1582.Įrgot, in high doses is very dangerous. Although LSD is purely synthetic, clues to its biological activity can be found by tracing the history of the fungus from which it is derived. LSD, one of the most powerful hallucinogenic drugs known, was invented in 1938 by the Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman, who was interested in developing medicines from compounds in ergot. Kernels infested with this fungus develop into light-brown to violet-brown curved pegs (sclerotia) that push forth from the husk in place of normal grains.Įrgot of rye (Secale cornutum) is the variety used medicinally. In a small town where the bread was fresh baked this was just fine, but as Europe began to urbanize and the bread took more time to get from bakery to grocer, the rye bread began to host a mold called “ergot”. Ergot of rye is produced by a lower fungus (Claviceps purpurea) that grows parasitically on rye and, to a lesser extent, on other species of grain and on wild grasses. William Mortense, Off for the Sabbath, 1927ĭuring the time leading up to the witchcraft trials in Europe, the staple bread was made with rye.
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