At 08:14 AM 1/24/01 +1100, Andrew Fildes wrote:
>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.
Some historians believe that ergot poisoning might have been responsible
for the mass hysteria surrounding the Salem witch hunts.
Garth
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