saw all that crazy shit they wrote about, in their dope crazed dreams! The crazyness in the "Book of Revelation" might have been written by someone on natural LSD.
5.1 POISONS OF THE PAST / ERGOTISM
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II. ERGOT AND ERGOTISM
Ergot is a fungal disease of rye grass. It transforms the grain into enlarged, hard, dark spur-like structures. (My note: ergot comes from Old French; it means spur.)
It grows best in damp conditions. Variations in weather are therefor crucial for its growth. LSD, a popular street drug some years ago, can be extracted from ergot. (My note: in an irony so frequent in medicine, ergot--a poison--is used to control excessive bleeding in childbirth.)
Ergotism is a form of fungal poisoning caused by the ingestion of the ergot fungus. It infects porridge and breads made from the grain. Ergot is best known for the two frequent extreme forms of the disease: convulsive and gangrenous. The reddening or blistering of the skin has earned it the occasional name of St. Anthony's Fire. (Scarlet fever and erysipelas are caused by a streptococci infection and causes similar skin redness, a problem for diagnosis until this century.)
In most of Europe north of the Alps and Pyrenees, as in Russia, the staple food of the masses two hundred years ago was bread made from rye. Ergotism has historically occurred in areas which used much rye. Since ergot fungus grows best in damp conditions, epidemics were most likely to occur after a severe winter or a rainy spring. In the last 200 years, the Russian people suffered most--faced with a cold climate, they depended on rye which is a particularly hardy grass. The Russian epidemics subsided with increasing potato production. Ergot passes readily into a nursing mother's milk. Thus, a century ago, Russia had the highest infant mortality rates in Europe. MORE...
http://www.uic.edu/classes/osci/osci590/5_1Poisons%20of%20the%20Past%20Ergotism.htm