Isn't it the precursor to mad cow disease????. Actually, not that funny. A
dear friend of mine recently succumbed to what CDC 'believes' was mad cow.
Scary stuff.
Jim
-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew Fildes [mailto:afildes@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2001 1:15 PM
To: olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [OM] Re: [OT] Ergot - was Rangefinder cameras
>Go on then Ian... what is "ergot"?
>
>Chris
It's a fungal blight of wheat which contains a hallucinogen similar to LSD.
It was blamed for some unusual occurences of mass panic and hysteria in
medieval times when whole villages ate bread made from batches of affected
grain. A derivative, ergometrin (?), is still used as a obstetric drug, I
think (have to check with my wife - she's the midwife).
In recent times, it may be implicated in highly localised examples of
strange behaviour, like the deranged compulsion to collect small pieces of
metal encased glass of various types...
Andrew
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