Ergot has a fascinating history. Once it was dreaded as a poison, but over the course of time it has become to be regarded as a rich storehouse of valuable medicines. Ergot was first mentioned in the early Middle Ages, as the cause of outbreaks of mass poisonings affecting thousands of persons at a time. The illness appeared in two characteristic forms, one gangrenous (ergotismus gangraenosus) and the other convulsive (ergotismus convulsivus). Popular names for ergotism - such as "mal des ardents", "ignis sacer", "heiliges Feuer" or "St. Anthony's fire" - refer to the gangrenous form of the disease. The patron saint of ergotism victims was St. Anthony, and it was primarily the Order of St. Anthony that treated these patients. Until quite recently, outbreaks of ergot poisoning approaching epidemic proportions were recorded in most European countries including certain areas of Russia. However, in the seventeenth century it was discovered that ergot-containing bread was the cause of the poisonings. This, coupled with progress in agriculture, caused the frequency and extent of ergotism epidemics to diminish considerably. The last great epidemic occurred in certain areas of southern Russia in the years 1926-27