Uses—It is given in decoction as a mild tonic, combined with more active medicines. It is very little employed in Iceland, and only in seasons of scarcity, when it is sometimes ground and mixed with the flour used in making the grout or grain soup. Occasionally it is taken boiled in milk. It is not given, as has been asserted, to domestic animals.
An interesting application of Iceland moss has recently been tried in Sweden. Sten-Stenberg treats it with sulphuric or hydrochloric acid, when 72 per cent. of grape sugar are formed, which may be converted into alcohol.[2748]
FUNGI.
SECALE CORNUTUM.
Ergota; Ergot of Rye,[2749] Spurred Rye; F. Seigle ergoté; G. Mutterkorn.
Botanical Origin—Claviceps purpurea Tulasne, a fungus of the order Pyrenomycetes, of which ergot is an immature form, it being the sclerotium (termed in the British Pharmacopœia compact mycelium or spawn) developed within the paleæ of numerous plants of the order Gramineæ.
Ergot is obtained almost exclusively from rye, Secale cereale L.; but the same fungus is produced on grasses belonging to many other genera, as Agropyrum, Alopecurus, Ammophila, Anthoxanthum, Arrhenatherum, Avena, Brachypodium, Calamagrostis, Dactylis, Glyceria, Hordeum, Lolium, Poa, and Triticum. Other organisms of diverse form, but of doubtful specific distinctness, are developed in Molinia, Oryza, Phragmites, and other grasses. In the order Cyperaceæ (e.g., Scirpus), peculiar ergots are known.
History—Although it is hardly possible that so singular a production as ergot should be unnoticed in the writings of the classical authors, we believe no undoubted reference to it has been discovered.[2750] The earliest date under which we find ergot mentioned on account of its obstetric virtues is towards the middle of the 16th century, by Adam Lonicer of Frankfort, who describes its appearance in the ears of rye, and adds that it is regarded by women to be of remarkable and certain efficacy.[2751] It is also very clearly described in the writings of Johannes Thalius, who speaks of it as used “ad sistendum sanguinem.”[2752] In the next century it was noticed by Caspar Bauhin, who termed it Secale luxurians,[2753] and by the English botanist Ray,[2754] with allusion to its medicinal properties.
Rathlaw, a Dutch accoucheur, employed ergot in 1747. Thirty years later Desgranges of Lyons prescribed it with success; but its peculiar and important properties were hardly allowed until the commencement of the present century, when Dr. Stearns of New York succeeded in gaining for them fuller recognition.[2755] Ergot of rye was not, however, admitted into the London Pharmacopœia until 1836.[2756]
The use of flour containing a considerable proportion of ergot, gives rise to a very formidable disease, distinguished in modern medicine as Ergotism, but known in early times by a variety of names, as Morbus spasmodicus, convulsivus, malignus, epidemicus vel cerealis, Raphania, Convulsio raphania[2757] or Ignis sancti Antonii.