Materials on the issue of ergot poisoning

Everyone knows the black horns that often appear on the ears of rye, instead of grains, which represent the sclerotia of the parasitic fungus Claviceps purpurea. Abundant rains during the period of grain ripening, as well as hailstorms, contribute to a more abundant infection of rye and, to a lesser extent, other grain crops with the aforementioned ergot horns. All these conditions were extremely bright and intense in the Novo-Georgievsk region, where we traced the epidemic of ergotism that arose there. By the beginning of the harvesting campaign, there were no instructions from agronomists about the contamination of grain with ergot horns. On July 21 (32), the harvesting of a new crop began, and on July 25, we already faced the fact of a massive ergotism disease. The symptomatology of the disease was as follows: severe weakness, vomiting, diarrhea, headache, slight flatulence and slight coldness of the arms and legs. But all these poisonings were relatively mild, outpatient.