ERGOT, or Spurred Rye, the drug ergota or Secale cornutum (Ger. Mutterkorn; Fr. seigle ergoté), consisting of the sclerotium (or hard resting condition) of a fungus, Claviceps purpurea, parasitic on the pistils of many members of the Grass family, but obtained almost exclusively from rye, Secale cereale. In the ear of rye that is infected with ergot a species of fermentation takes place, and there exudes from it a sweet yellowish mucus, which after a time disappears. The ear loses its starch, and ceases to grow, and its ovaries become penetrated with the white spongy tissue of the mycelium of the fungus which towards the end of the season forms the sclerotium, in which state the fungus lies dormant through the winter.
The drug consists of grains, usually curved (hence the name, from the O. Fr. argot, a cock’s spur), which are violet-black or dark-purple externally, and whitish with a tinge of pink within, are between 1⁄3 and 1½ in. long, and from 1 to 4 lines broad, and have two lateral furrows, a close fracture, a disagreeable rancid taste, and a faint, fishy odour, which last becomes more perceptible when the powder of the drug is mixed with potash solution. Ergot should be kept in stoppered bottles in order to preserve it from the attacks of a species of mite, and to prevent the oxidation of its fatty oil.
The extremely complex composition of this drug has been studied in great detail, and with such important results that instead of giving ergot itself by the mouth in doses of 20 to 60 grains, it is now possible to obtain much more rapid and certain results by giving one three-hundredth of a grain of one of its constituents hypodermically. This constituent is the alkaloid cornutine, which is the valuable ingredient of the drug. Other ingredients are a fixed oil, present to the extent of 30%, ergotinic acid, a glucoside, trimethylamine, which gives the drug its unpleasant odour, and sphacelinic acid, a non-nitrogenous resinoid body. Of the numerous preparations only two need be mentioned—the liquid extract (dose 10 minims to 2 drachms or more), and the hypodermic injection. The latter does not keep well, and the best way of using ergot is to dissolve tablets obtained from a reputable maker, and containing some of the active principles, in pure water, the solution being injected subcutaneously.
Ergot has no external action. Given internally it stimulates the intestinal muscles and may cause diarrhoea. After absorption it slows the pulse by stimulation of the vagus nerves. It has indeed been asserted that the slow pulse characteristic of the puerperal period is really due to the common administration of ergot at that time. This is probably an exaggeration. The important actions of ergot are on the blood-vessels and the uterus. The drug greatly raises the blood-pressure by causing extreme contraction of the arteries. This is mainly due to a direct action on the muscular coats of the vessels, but is also partly of central origin, since the drug also stimulates the vaso-motor centre in the medulla oblongata. This action on the vessels is so marked as to constitute the drug a haemostatic, not only locally but also remotely. It may arrest bleeding from the nose, for instance, when injected hypodermically. Nearly all the constituents share in causing this action, but the sphacelinic acid is probably the most potent. Ergot is the most powerful known stimulant of the pregnant uterus. The action is a double one. At least four of its constituents act directly on the muscular fibre of the uterus, whilst the cornutine acts through the nerves. Of great practical importance is the fact that the cornutine causes rhythmic contractions such as naturally occur, whilst the sphacelinic acid produces a tonic contraction of the uterus, which is unnatural and highly inimical to the life of the foetus. Ergot is used in therapeutics as a haemostatic, and is very valuable in haemoptysis and sometimes in haematemesis. But its great use is in obstetrics. The drug should regularly be given hypodermically, and it is important to note that if the injection be made immediately under the skin, an abscess, or considerable discomfort, may ensue. The injection should be intra-muscular, the needle being boldly plunged into a muscular mass, such as that of the deltoid or the gluteal region. The indications for the use of ergot in obstetrics are highly complex and demand detailed treatment. It can only be said here that the drug should only in the rarest possible cases be given whilst the child is still in utero. This rule is necessitated by the sphacelinic acid, which causes an unnatural state of the organ. When it is possible to obtain pure cornutine, which is unfortunately very expensive, the precautions necessary in other cases may be abrogated.
Chronic poisoning, or ergotism, used frequently to occur amongst the poor fed on rye infected with the Claviceps. As it is practically impossible to reproduce the symptoms of ergotism nowadays, whether experimentally in the lower animals, or when the drug is being administered to a human being for some therapeutic purpose, it is believed that the symptoms of ergotism were rendered possible only by the semi-starvation which must have ensued from the use of such rye-bread; for the grain disappears as the fungus develops. There were two types of ergotism. In the gangrenous form various parts of the body underwent gangrene as a consequence of the arrest of blood-supply produced by the action of sphacelinic acid on the arteries. In the spasmodic form the symptoms were of a nervous character. The initial indications of the disease were cutaneous itching, tingling and formication, which gave place to actual loss of cutaneous sensation, first observed in the extremities. Amblyopia and some loss of hearing also occurred, as well as mental failure. With weakness of the voluntary muscles went intermittent spasms which weakened the patient and ultimately led to death by implication of the respiratory muscles. The last-known “epidemic” of ergotism occurred in Lorraine and Burgundy in the year 1816.
ERIC XIV. (1533-1577), king of Sweden, was the only son of Gustavus Vasa and Catherine of Saxe-Lauenburg. The news of his father’s death reached Eric as he was on the point of embarking for England to press in person his suit for the hand of Queen Elizabeth. He hastened back to Stockholm, after burying his father, summoned a Riksdag, which met at Arboga on the 15th of April 1561, and adopted the royal propositions known as the Arboga articles, considerably curtailing the authority of the royal dukes, John and Charles, in their respective provinces. Two months later Eric was crowned at Upsala, on which occasion he first introduced the titles of baron and count into Sweden, by way of attaching to the crown the higher nobility, these new counts and barons receiving lucrative fiefs adequate to the maintenance of their new dignities.
From the very beginning of his reign Eric’s morbid fear of the upper classes drove him to give his absolute confidence to a man of base origin and bad character, though, it must be admitted, of superior ability. This was Göran Persson, born about 1530, who had been educated abroad in Lutheran principles, and after narrowly escaping hanging at the hands of Gustavus Vasa for some vile action entered the service of his son. This powerful upstart was the natural enemy of the nobility, who suffered much at his hands, though it is very difficult to determine whether the initiative in these prosecutions proceeded from him or his master. Göran was also a determined opponent of Duke John, with whom Eric in 1563 openly quarrelled, because John, contrary to the royal orders, had married (Oct. 4, 1562) Catherine, daughter of Sigismund I. of Poland, engaging at the same time to assist the Polish king to conquer Livonia. This act was a flagrant breach of that paragraph of the Arboga articles which forbade the royal dukes to contract any political treaty without the royal assent. An army of 10,000 men was immediately sent by Eric to John’s duchy of Finland, and John and his consort were seized, brought over to Sweden and detained as prisoners of state in Gripsholm Castle. But Eric did not stop here. His suspicion suggested to him that, if his own brother failed him, the loyalty of the great nobles, especially the members of the ancient Sture family, who had been notable in Sweden when the Vasas were unknown, could not be depended upon. The head of the Sture family at this time was Count Svante, who had married a sister of Gustavus Vasa’s second wife, and had by her a numerous family, of whom two sons, Nils and Eric, still survived. The dark tragedy, known as the Sture murders, began with Eric XIV.’s strange treatment of young Count Nils. In 1566 he was summoned before a newly erected tribunal and condemned to death for gross neglect of duty, though not one of the frivolous charges brought against him could be substantiated. The death penalty was commuted into a punishment worse because more shameful than death. On the 15th of June 1566 the unfortunate youth, bruised and bleeding from shocking ill-treatment, was placed upon a wretched hack, with a crown of straw on his head, and led in derision through the streets of Stockholm. The following night he was sent a prisoner to the fortress of Örbyhus. A few days later he was appointed ambassador extraordinary, and despatched to Lorraine to resume the negotiations for Eric’s marriage with the princess Renata. Before he returned, however, Eric had resolved to marry Karin, or Kitty Månsdatter, the daughter of a common soldier, who had been his mistress since 1565. In January 1567 Eric extorted a declaration from two of his senators that they would assist him to punish all who should try to prevent his projected marriage; and, in the middle of May, a Riksdag was summoned to Upsala to judge between the king and those of the aristocracy whom he regarded as his personal enemies. Eric himself arrived at Upsala on the 16th in a condition of incipient insanity. On the 19th he opened parliament in a speech which, as he explained, he had to deliver extempore owing to “the treachery” of his secretary. Two days later Nils Sture arrived at Upsala fresh from his embassy to Lorraine, and was at once thrown into prison, where other members of the nobility were already detained. On the following day Eric murdered Nils in his cell with his own hand, and by his order the other prisoners were despatched by the royal provost marshal forthwith. These murders were committed so promptly and secretly that it is doubtful whether the estates, actually in session at the same place, knew what had been done when, on the 26th of May, under violent pressure from Göran Persson, they signed a document declaring that all the accused gentlemen under detention had acted like traitors, and confirming all sentences already passed or that might be passed upon them.
During the greater part of 1567 Eric was so deranged that a committee of senators was appointed to govern the kingdom. One of his illusions was that not he was king but his brother John, whom he now set at liberty. When, at the beginning of 1568, Eric recovered his reason, a reconciliation was effected between the king and the duke, on condition that John recognized the legality of his brother’s marriage with Karin Månsdatter, and her children as the successors to the throne. A month later, on the 4th of July, he was solemnly married to Karin at Stockholm by the primate. The next day Karin was crowned queen of Sweden and her infant son Gustavus proclaimed prince-royal. Shortly after his marriage Eric issued a circular ordering a general thanksgiving for his delivery from the assaults of the devil. This document, in every line of which madness is legible, convinced most thinking people that Eric was unfit to reign. The royal dukes, John and Charles, had already taken measures to depose him; and in July the rebellion broke out in Östergötland. Eric at first offered a stout resistance and won two victories; but on the 17th of September the dukes stood before Stockholm, and Eric, after surrendering Göran Persson to the horrible vengeance of his enemies, himself submitted, and resigned the crown. On the 30th of September 1568 John III. was proclaimed king by the army and the nobility; and a Riksdag, summoned to Stockholm, confirmed the choice and formally deposed Eric on the 25th of January 1569. For the next seven years the ex-king was a source of the utmost anxiety to the new government. No fewer than three rebellions, with the object of releasing and reinstating him, had to be suppressed, and his prison was changed half a dozen times. On the 10th of March 1575, an assembly of notables, lay and clerical, at John’s request, pronounced a formal sentence of death upon him. Two years later, on the 24th of February 1577, he died suddenly in his new prison at Örbyhus, poisoned, it is said, by his governor, Johan Henriksen.
See Sveriges Historia, vol. iii. (Stockholm, 1880); Robert Nisbet Bain, Scandinavia, cap. 4-6 (Cambridge, 1905); Eric Tegel, Konung Eriks den XIV. historia (Stockholm, 1751).