Devilish poisonings

Poisoning by ergot residues in bread

The devil was behind many misfortunes for the people of the Middle Ages. Behavior that explains itself as a mental disorder, such as schizophrenia, was considered possession by demons.

contents

• Poisoning by ergot residues in bread
• Hose fungus cause of delusional states
• Endurance through poisoned bread?
• Witch hysteria as a result of ergot poisonings

Did Satan poison the food? A decay sought the people in Xanten 857 AD home. In Veitstänzen people collapsed in cramps. St. Anthony's Fire, also called tingling disease, begins with circulatory disorders. Limbs die down, terrible things plague those affected. The Antoniter-Orden treated the patients in 370 hospices, in the 15th century up to 3000 people. Antony (died 356) won his sanctity because he was exposed in the loneliness of hell visions and was therefore considered the patron saint of the nightmare images plagued. His powers of faith made the saint conquer the temptations of Satan. Psychologically, he dealt with projections of his unconscious. Reflecting on them can trigger a healing process.

Hose fungus cause of delusional states

The waves of witch-hunts were sometimes associated with delusions in which people believed they had been jinxed, sought out guilty people, and found them in the alleged witches who, under torture, made a pact with the devil and died at the stake. A wave of witch trials falls into the second half of the 16th century. This phase is known as the Little Ice Age. The temperature dropped. Such cooling provides excellent conditions for ergot, Claviceps purpurea, an ascomycete parasite that infects rye, other crops and grass. The symptoms, ergotism, cramps and paralysis follow on eating cereals that the fungus infects. Hallucinations are a side effect, resembling the horror images of witchcraft. Mass epidemics of the Middle Ages can be explained with ergot. Bread, baked from poisoned flour, claviceps in the straw and hay, the sleeping place and the cattle shed - the toadstool was part of everyday life. Like heroin, the fungus develops its effect through inhalation. Mowing and threshing distributed the parasite, the villagers inhaled Claviceps. Agricultural historians assume that one-third of the grain was affected by ergot.

Endurance through poisoned bread?

Against the theory speaks that mythical ideas can not be derived from climatic conditions. People did not believe in God or the devil because they suffered from fungal poisoning. The circumstances in which anxiety turns into hysteria may be influenced by ergot. The literary historian Piero Camporesi sees the simple people of the early modern age in a constant intoxication through poisoned bread. A constant supply of ergot in small doses leads to a psychosis that corresponds to the fantasies of witchcraft, because the hellish visions of hell and the horror trip in LSD are not just similar; LSD was developed from the fungus.

Witch hysteria as a result of ergot poisonings

The psychologist Linda Carporael suspected ergot behind the witch hysteria and examined the witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. Eight girls told then that they were animals and monsters. They accused locals of having bewitched them. Nineteen of those denounced were sentenced to death. Then the symptoms stopped. Carporael explained the climate at the time of the witch trial as ideal for the spread of the fungus. Rye, his chief host, was the most important crop in New England. The girls went crazy in winter after the peasants threshed the grain.

How the pilgrimage affects, showed a case in 1951 in Pont-Saint-Esprit in France. 200 inhabitants poisoned by contaminated flour; several dozen had to go to psychiatry. They saw tigers and snakes attack. A boy choked on his mother, a woman jumped out the window because she thought she was flying. A priest exorcised the bakery. Ergotism does not explain the belief in witches, but it could have been a catalyst for mass psychosis associated with witchcraft. (Dr. Utz Anhalt)