random medieval medical research
Jul. 26th, 2010 03:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sureiSt. Vitus' Dance - refers to choreia, usually as caused by Huntington's disease, or by childhood rheumatic fever. Involuntary twitches, jerks, trembling, and exaggerated movement. In its extremes, also known as ballism. In some ways the opposite of Parkinson's, which results in stiffness and restricted movement.
St. Anthony's Fire - so named because the monks dedicated to St. Anthony the Great were apparently particularly effective in treating it; refers to the reddened, inflamed skin and burning sensation of gangrenous ergotism, erysipelas, and shingles. Also called ignis sacer, or "holy fire".
Ergotism in particular is a speculated cause of imagery produced by Hieronymus Bosch, of the Salem witch trials, and of la Grande Peur at the start of the French Revolution; ergot, for which it is named, is a blight on rye which produces an alkaloid in immediate precursor to LSD, and accounts of "bad trips" sometimes bear remarkable resemblance to Bosch's works. Besides hallucinations and ignis sacer, it also causes seizures and spasms, diarrhea, headaches, nausea, mania, psychosis, numbness, peeling skin, edema, and poor blood circulation to extremities which may eventually result in their turning black and falling off. The earliest record of an ergot poisoning epidemic was in 857, and outbreaks are still possible today.
St. Anthony's Fire - so named because the monks dedicated to St. Anthony the Great were apparently particularly effective in treating it; refers to the reddened, inflamed skin and burning sensation of gangrenous ergotism, erysipelas, and shingles. Also called ignis sacer, or "holy fire".
Ergotism in particular is a speculated cause of imagery produced by Hieronymus Bosch, of the Salem witch trials, and of la Grande Peur at the start of the French Revolution; ergot, for which it is named, is a blight on rye which produces an alkaloid in immediate precursor to LSD, and accounts of "bad trips" sometimes bear remarkable resemblance to Bosch's works. Besides hallucinations and ignis sacer, it also causes seizures and spasms, diarrhea, headaches, nausea, mania, psychosis, numbness, peeling skin, edema, and poor blood circulation to extremities which may eventually result in their turning black and falling off. The earliest record of an ergot poisoning epidemic was in 857, and outbreaks are still possible today.