Pin of rye

The pin of rye ( Claviceps purpurea Tul.) is a Champignon group of the Ascomycète S, parasite of the Seigle (and others Céréale S). It contains Alcaloïde S responsible for the Ergotisme.

Description

It is a permanent mycelium capable of wintering.

The touched grains take a conical form; the Sclérote S are coloured of clear chestnut with mauve and it leaves the Glume S there in the place of the usual grain.

Properties

It contains polycyclic alkaloids, like the Ergométrine, the Ergocristine, the Ergocornine, the Ergocryptine and the Ergotamine, from which the Lysergic acid is drawn (whose LSD is a synthetic derivative).

Use

Its use by the midwives as Antalgique seems ancestral even if it is mentioned in a collection of medicinal plants only in 1582 by the German doctor Adam Lonitzer. But it is the pharmacologist H.H. Dale who highlights caracteric utéro-constrictive and inhibiting one on the Adrénaline of the preparation. In 1908, an American doctor (John Stearn) devotes a publication ( Account off the pulvis parturiens, has remedy for quickening childbirth ) to the pin which proposes it in traditional medicine. But its use is considered to be too dangerous for the child since in the event of error of proportioning the Parturiente suffers from uterine spasms; its use is limited then to the reduction of the postnatal Hémorragie S. It is only in 1918 that Arthur Stoll insulates finally a Alcaloïde, the Ergotamine what opens the way with the therapeutic use. Finally in the Years 1930, American W.A. Jacob and L.C. Craig isolate the basic element common to all alkaloids from the pin, the Lysergic acid . Lastly, Arthur Stoll and E. Burckhardt isolate the anti-hemorrhagic principle from the pin, the Ergométrine (also called ergobasine or ergonovine). Albert Hoffmann is the first to synthesize it and to improve of them the utéro-constrictive therapeutic capacities which is marketed under the name Methergine ; it is by seeking other active molecules according to the same method that it synthesizes LSD in 1938.

In Medicine, the derived from the rye pin are molecules used in particular in the treatment of the crises of Migraine.

Aspect cultural and historical

It was formerly responsible for a disease, the Ergotisme, called with the Moyen-âge Mal of Burning the or fire of Saint-Anthony , dependant on the presence of pin in rye used to manufacture the Pain. This disease, which lasts until the 17th century, is presented in the form of Hallucination S momentary, similar so that LSD causes, and with a Vasoconstriction artériolaire, followed loss of sensitivity of the ends of the various members, like the ends of the fingers. At that time, it was commonly allowed that these people were victims of Sorcellerie or of demon S. Saint Antoine is the saint-owner of the ergotiques ones.

According to Mary Matossian, the rye pin would have belonged to the causes of the Great fear of 1789. It was evoked like possible explanation of the visions of certain saints and in the case of Jeanne d' Arc.

Pont-Saint-Esprit, 1951

During the summer 1951, a series of food poisonings striking the France, of which most serious starting from the August 17th with Pont-Saint-Esprit, where it makes seven dead, 50 interned in psychiatric hospitals and 250 people afflicted with more or less serious or durable symptoms. The medical community thinks whereas the cursed bread could have contained Ergot of rye, but without having the proof of it. The bread bought in Briand bakery causes Vomissement S, headaches, pains gastric, muscular, and access of madness ( démoniaques convulsions , Hallucination S and suicide attempts), disorders being able to evoke the Ergotisme. The city is taken of panic; a newspaper, quoted by the historian Steven L. Kaplan, observes:
Then, fault of the name of the evil, one wants to know that of the responsible man. The versions more abracadabrantes circulate. One shows the baker candidate [[Gathering of French people|RPF], protected from an general adviser of De Gaulle], her baker's boy, then the water of the fountains, then modern felling machines, foreign powers, the bacteriological war, devil, the SNCF, the pope, Stalin, the Church, nationalizations.
The spiripontains applaud the arrest of a Meunier poitevin, supplier of the Farine employed in Pont-Saint-Esprit, imprisoned with Nimes, before protesting against its libération.
More than fifty years after the events of Pont-Saint-Esprit, one cannot still with what allot them. Clinically, the symptoms were those of a mixed form of Ergotisme, but this Diagnostic could not be proven. One also thought of an intoxication by the dicyandiamide of métyl-mercury , a product contained in a Fongicide used for the conservation of the grains, but this track ended up being abandoned. In 1982, professor Moreau, specialist in the Moulds, put forth the assumption that the Intoxication of Pont-Saint-Esprit could have come from Mycotoxines, substances produced by moulds being able to develop in the silos with grain, of which the effects Toxique S are now well-known in Veterinary medicine, but which were almost unknown in 1951. But there still nothing could be proven, and the specialists are in disagreement. Ultimately, the business of the cursed bread of Pont-Saint-Esprit preserves, to date, all its mystery.

References

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