From ergot to "Ernutin" : an historical sketch : lecture memoranda, Medical Congress, Bombay, 1909.

Date:
[1909?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: From ergot to "Ernutin" : an historical sketch : lecture memoranda, Medical Congress, Bombay, 1909. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The English epidemic is described as an ‘‘epidemic erysipelas, whereof many died, the parts being black and shrivelled up,” Hugh of Lincoln (a.d. 1190) is said by his chronicler to have seen many who recovered from the fire at Mont St. Antoine in Dauphine. “ They were of all ages, and although terribly crippled, their health was, nevertheless, restored. Some lacked a forearm, others a leg, or even a leg and frgodsm^ thigh up to the groin, but all their .stumps were soundly healed,” And so throughout the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries we have the .same melancholy tale of the effects of this terrible scourge. It was even noted that the di.sease was most destructive in the 3'ears of bad harvests and in times of famine, but no one connected the eating Curious Qf ergotted grain with the disease, remedies ft'r Manv curious remedies were cmploved in St. Antony's , fire the Middle Ages as cures for “ .St, Autoiyv’s fire ” by those who had not sufficient faith in the sacred relics. A Dani.sh manuscript of the fourteenth century gives the following recipe:— “ Against ery.sipclas. “It is the ‘bad fire’ of bad blood. Take .some hermodactyl, bones of the hen, and salt. Put together in a mortar and powder. Then wash the ]ilace of the irritation with strong vinegar and cover it with the powder. Take, too, a piece of malva, and boil the bark during two or three da^'S. Take afterwards .some earth from a molehill, and fill up the hole with all that, in order to let the flesh grow near the ulcer. After all this has been done, cover the limb to let it ]iers})ire, and the limb which falls must be placed in the sun or in the fire.” In another medical manuscript of the thirteenth centuiA’:— “Of the plantain, his moisture is good. too. for fin' in the ears and for ‘bad fire.’
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