Le Pain Maudit (The Cursed Bread)

-

In the spring of 1951, over 250 people in the lovely town of Pont St. Esprit were sent into a month long shrieking hell of hallucinations and no sleep. None.  Many had permanent psychological damage.  It seems that one of the local bakers, Roch Briand, accepted a sack of decayed rye flour in exchange for good flour.  Whatever it was, the dough raised blisters on the bakery employees and was used for bread anyway.  The very, very likely suspect is ergot poisoning.  This was an extremely bad trip.


Seven died, over 50 had to be put in Asylums.


Hieronymus Bosch, The Temptation Of Saint Anthony.
 
Mass ergot poisoning was known in the middle ages as St. Anthony's Fire.  Limbs would go gangrenous and fall off, with other symptoms identical to the Pont St. Esprit nightmare.  (As far as I know the gangrene thing was not present at the Pont St. Esprit episode).


Ergot induced gangrene.


Temptation of St. Anthony, detail. This is from the Isenheim Alter, Niclaus of Haguenau and Matthias Gruenwald, artists.  There have been many who claim the CIA deliberately poisoned this French town as a biowar experiment.  This is total bullshit.  LSD does not induce symptoms like that.
 


I first read about this in High Times c. 1977.  This was the book that the magazine used for the article.  I later found it about a decade ago and if you wish to read horror stories, this is the book for you.


Ergot infected rye.  In the old days, people knew damn well what would happen if they ate this.  The problem was that rye was the staple grain and if you did not eat what you had, you did not eat.


So, who wants some toast?
 
 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Two Angel Forms Were Seen To Glide

-
Image
’Twas on a lofty vase’s side, Where China’s gayest art had dyed The azure flowers that blow; Demurest of the tabby kind, The pensive Selima, reclined, Gazed on the lake below. Her conscious tail her joy declared; The fair round face, the snowy beard, The velvet of her paws, Her coat, that with the tortoise vies, Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes, She saw; and purred applause. Still had she gazed; but ’midst the tide Two angel forms were seen to glide, The genii of the stream; Their scaly armour’s Tyrian hue Through richest purple to the view Betrayed a golden gleam. The hapless nymph with wonder saw; A whisker first and then a claw, With many an ardent wish, She stretched in vain to reach the prize. What female heart can gold despise? What cat’s averse to fish? Presumptuous maid! with looks intent Again she stretch’d, again she bent, Nor knew the gulf between. (Malignant Fate sat by, and smiled) The slippery verge her feet beguiled, She tumbled headlong in. Eigh
Read more

Where In The World Is Billy D Bunny?

-
Image
''The plight of Davis Paul'' ''Dam you to Hades Billy! why are you setting fire to my Wardrobe with your Cigarette!!?''...you would hear on occasion some kind of verbal anger often from Davis - shouting out in abstract Frustration, 'just because Billy Thought Davis Pauls Clothes were lame'' oh yeah, Billy D was the Dude.........Davis put up with so much crap and nonsense from the rebellious Layabout - come would be antisocial super hero, ''the enabler''...Davis Paul was literally at the end of his tether..all those worrisome late nights... Davis would often shout at Billy, during one of Billy's Trash rampages, ''Aunt may never has this problem ever with peter parker !'' and then the rest of the time, Davis Paul wondering where Billy was? and what was Billy D up too? then after hours and hour of worrying,  Billy would just rock up - staggering through the Front door, Gladiator outfit on, covered
Read more

Two Sides Of The Same Coin

-
Image
 It was a lovely day in November.  At least Tom thought it was November, the air was crisp and cool and it felt Novemberish.  There were no calenders here, while he had a clock he rarely looked at it.  He never had to be anywhere at any particular time in any event, when he had to be somewhere he always showed up on time, if that's the word for it.  Anyway, it was a nice Fall day. Tom stood on his porch that surrounded the small field stone house, he could see and smell the smoke from his neighbor's fires, someone was cooking fish and the big cat was salivating.  Since he had had his coffee he wasn't hungry, but the fish really smelled enticing.  Odd, he thought, I haven't had meat since I got here.  When did I get here?  he thought to himself, I don't remember.  Maybe someplace in town sold meat, although he had never seen such a shop.  It didn't matter, what with the bread and potatoes and butter and honey he was never hungry.  Tom lit a cigarette
Read more