Introduction
Ergota (Ergot or Argot, Fr., a cock’s spur); Ergot of rye; Spurred rye; Secale clavatum; Mater secalis; Seigle ergote (Fr.); Mutterkorn; Kornmutter (G).
Generalities
Many sharp, shifting pains in different parts of body, and stiffness of back and neck as though muscles were swollen close to occiput.
Cases
1. Mrs. L. M. Hayes, with the 200th. This prover knew the potency but not the drug. She was perfectly convinced that in the 200th potency no drug was capable of producing medicinal symptoms on the healthy, and persisted in repeating her experiments to verify or disprove former results. Took November 4th, six drops every other day for a week. November 17th, took six drops twice a day for a week. January 5th, took fifteen drops every day for a week. March 1st, took fifteen drops every morning for three days.
2. Miss. R. C. Wilder, took six drops, 30th potency, in morning of November 5th, 8th, 12th, 15th.
3. H. B. Reynolds, took one drachm of 2D potency, in repeated doses.
4. J. S. Campbell, took several doses of 2D potency.
5. F. W. Rogers, took one drachm of 200th potency, a dose twice a day for two weeks.
7. D. M. Finley, 100th potency; repeated the proving four times with same results each time.
8. Miss. H. M. Swathel, took 200th potency, from March 1st to April 23s, two or three times a day. Took 100th potency from May 2D to May 15th once or twice daily.
9. G. D. Green, took 2D potency for two weeks.
10. C. S. Erswell, took 100th potency, one drachm, in daily doses for two weeks.
11. E. H. Pond, took 30th potency.
12. E. C. Watts, took 30th potency daily for a week.
Since March, 1880, the drug was given out to seventy-two volunteers, as follows: Second potency to 16 provers.
Third potency to 4 provers.
Sixth potency to 17 provers.
Thirtieth potency to 13 provers.
Sixtieth potency to 5 provers.
One hundredth potency to 6 provers.
Two hundredth potency to 8 provers.
Blanks potency to 3 provers.
The blanks were given to those whose health, on examination, was not deemed sufficiently good to warrant a reliable proving, only one of whom (a young man who afterwards died of albuminuria) obtained or returned any results.
RULES OBSERVED.
So far as possible, every prover was examined as to health and personal qualifications; and questioned or cross-questioned on the recorded results.
Provers were directed to follow the rules laid down by Dunham for proving a drug.
No person knew what she or he was taking.
BOTANY.
Adam Lonicer, of Frankfurt, about the middle of the 16th century, is the first botanical writer to notice Ergot, and soon after Thalius speaks of it as used “ad sistendum sanguinem.”
In 1623, Caspar Bauhin mentions it under the name of Secale Luxurians, and in 1693 the English botanist Ray alludes to its medicinal properties.
The true nature of Ergot, whether a product of diseased vegetable life or true vegetable itself, has long been a source of a great diversity of opinion. But according to the latest authorities, Secale cornutum belongs to the order Thallophyta cellular or non-vascular plants. This is the lowest order of the vegetable kingdom and is divided into two classes, Algae and Fungi, which is based upon the presence in the former of Chlorophyll, and its absence in the latter. They produce no differentiation of root, stem or leaf. In the lowest members of the group there is no sexual reproduction; in the higher the sexual union may be by a single spore, or a mass of spores, or a fructification within which spores are found. De Candolle and Fries in 1816, and Leveille, in 1827, added, by their researches, much to our knowledge of the intimate structure of Secale, but it remained to L. R. Tulsane, in 1853, by his admirable monograph “Memoire sur 1′ Ergot des Glumacees,” to clear up many disputed o7 3 points in the formation, growth and development of this fungus, and this monograph is still referred to by nearly every author as the best work on the subject. Yet Fluckiger and Hanbury maintain that the true nature of Ergot has not been settled even by Tulsane’s long continued and admirable researches.
FORMATION.
Hamilton sums up the conflicting views entertained by various writers as follows: a. “Some regard Ergot as a fungus growing between the glumes of grasses, in the place of the ovary (hence Leveille calls it Spacelia segetum). b. “Some regard Ergot as a diseased condition of the ovary or seed. c. “Some have supposed that ordinary morbific causes (such as moisture combined with warmth ) were sufficient to give rise to this diseased condition of the grain. d. “Some have ascribed the disease to the attack of insects or other animals. e. “Some, dissatisfied with the previously assigned causes of the disease, have been content with declaring Ergot to be a disease, but without specifying the circumstances which induce it.”
Fluckiger and Hanbury state, “That the tissue of the seed of the rye, in the process of development, does not undergo a transformation, but is simply destroyed.
Neither in external form, nor in anatomical structure, does Ergot exhibit any resemblance to a seed, although its development takes place between the flowering time and that at which the rye begins to ripen. It has been regarded a complete fungus, and as such was named by De Candolle Sclerotium Clavus, and by Fries Spermoedia Clavius. No further change occurs in the Ergot while it remains in the ear, but laid on damp earth, interesting phenomena take place. At certain points small, orbicular patches of the rind fold themselves back, and gradually throw out little white heads.
These increase in size while the outer layers of the neighboring tissue gradually lose their firmness and become soft and rather granular, at the same time the cells, of which they are made up, become empty and extended. In the interior of Ergot, the cells retain their oil drops unaltered. The heads assume a grayish yellow color, changing to purple, and finally after some weeks stretch themselves towards the light on slender, shining stalks, of a pale, violet color. The stalks often attain an inch in length with a thickness of about half a line. Fluckiger further says: “Ergot of rye collected by myself in August, placed upon earth in a garden pot and left in the open air unprotected through the winter, began to develop the Claviceps on the 20th of March.”
Hering calls it an undetermined fungus, and from the doubtful position it has so long held in the world of science classes it, not without some reason, as a “Nosode, ” and when a doubtful point in Materia Medica is to be solved, the opinion of the venerated and scientific Hering is deserving of some consideration.
Nosode, he says: “Is the general term given to the alcoholic extracts of morbid productions, foolishly called isopathic remedies. The most useful and fully proved are Hydrophobinum and Psorinum. To these ‘Nosodes’ belong the Ustilago maidis, the Secale cornutum, the fungus of the potato, the ambra of the pot fish, anthracin, vaccinin, variolin, etc. The sneering remarks of Trinks and others in 1826 against Sepia and the ignorant opposition to Lachesis have sunken into oblivion during the succeeding score of years. All the condemning remarks against the Hydrophobinum Psorinum and other ‘Nosodes’ will meet the same fate. We can afford to wait.”
PREPARATION.
For homoeopathic use the Ergot of rye should always be prepared fresh, as it is fed on by a small acarus which destroys the interior of the grain, leaving it a mere shell. Ergot kept in stock longer than a year should always be rejected on this account.
MEDICAL HISTORY.
Among the writings of the ancients there is no distinct notice to be found of Ergot. In 1089 the French historian Singebert, refers to an epidemic in the following passage. “A pestilent year, especially in the western parts of Lorraine, where many persons became putrid, in consequence of their inward parts being consumed by St. Anthony’s fire. Their limbs were rotten and became black like coal. They either perished miserably or, deprived of their putrid hands and feet, were reserved for a more miserable life. Moreover, many cripples were afflicted with contraction of the Sinews”.
An epidermic disease in Hessia in 1596 first attracted the attention of the medical profession to Ergot as a cause. Rathlaw, a Dutch accoucher, employed it in 1747, but it was not until thirty years later, 1777, that the essays of Desgranges, and especially those of Stearns and Prescott in the United States, that its medicinal properties became known.
To the use of rye flour, more or less adulterated with Ergot, is attributed the formidable disease known in modern medicine as Ergotism, but in early times by a number of names: Morbus spasmodicus, Convulsivus Malignus, Epidemicus vel Cerealis, Convulsion Raphania, Ignus Sancti Antonia. There is now little doubt that the terrible epidemics which occurred in France in the tenth century and in Spain in the twelfth century were due to Ergot. Fluckiger and Hanbury says: “In the year 1596 Hessia and the adjoining regions were ravaged by a frightful pestilence, which the medical faculty of Marburg attributed to the presence of Ergot in the cereals consumed by the population. The same disease appeared in France in 1630 in Voightland, Saxony, in the years 1648. 1649 and 1675; again in various parts of France in 1650, 1670 and 1674. Freiburg and vicinity were visited by the same malady in 1702; other parts of Switzerland in 1715-16; Saxony and Lusatia in 1716; many other districts of Germany in 1717, 1722,1736 and 1741-42. The last European epidemic occurred after the rainy season of 1816 in Lorraine and Burgundy, and proved very fatal among the poorer classes.”
