> "Ergot, caused by the fungus Claviceps purpurea, is a disease of
> cereal crops and grasses....Human poisoning was common in Europe in
> the Middle Ages when ergoty rye bread was often consumed."
>
> http://www.ext.nodak.edu/extpubs/pla...ops/pp551w.htm
>
> Ergotamine is an abortifacient and a vaso-constrictor. Ergotamine
> tartrate is the primary ingredient of LSD.

It isn't. It's a chemical from whch LSD can be made. It's commonly
prescribed as an anti-migraine drug; the standard dose is 2mg, which
is 8 times larger than a 1960s-level LSD dose and about 50 times the
LSD dose people usually take these days. That is, if there were any
significant LSD-like effects from ergotamine tartrate there'd be a
lot of migraine sufferers noticing it.

It takes complicated chemical processing to make anything hallucinogenic
from ergotamine, and your own metabolism can't do it. The idea that the
effects of ergot on rye have anything to do with LSD is a 1960s urban
legend. Mouldy rye might well make your fingers and toes drop off with
gangrene, but that's no hallucination. Goodman and Gilman's "The
Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics" describes the toxic effects of
crude ergot in some detail.

You or your source are also mixed up about the abortifacient properties
of ergot. There are several oxytocic chemicals in it; the one used in
obstetrics is ergometrine, which is chemically related to ergotamine but
isn't the same thing.

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On 29 Mar 2004 01:11:13 GMT, (bogus address)
wrote:

>
>
>> "Ergot, caused by the fungus Claviceps purpurea, is a disease of
>> cereal crops and grasses....Human poisoning was common in Europe in
>> the Middle Ages when ergoty rye bread was often consumed."
>>
>> http://www.ext.nodak.edu/extpubs/pla...ops/pp551w.htm
>>
>> Ergotamine is an abortifacient and a vaso-constrictor. Ergotamine
>> tartrate is the primary ingredient of LSD.
>
>It isn't. It's a chemical from whch LSD can be made. It's commonly
>prescribed as an anti-migraine drug; the standard dose is 2mg, which
>is 8 times larger than a 1960s-level LSD dose and about 50 times the
>LSD dose people usually take these days. That is, if there were any
>significant LSD-like effects from ergotamine tartrate there'd be a
>lot of migraine sufferers noticing it.

I didn't say ergotamine tartrate *was* LSD; I said it was a primary
ingredient. I *was* wrong about it being an abortifacient -- I seem to
remember that warning from my migraine days. It *is* contraindicated
for pregnant women or those who may become pregnant. Symptoms of
ergotism (ergot poisoning) may include writhing, tremors, convulsions,
hallucinations, and temporary or permanant psychosis. One presumes
medications prescribed for vascular headaches are not *quite* the same
formulation as either LSD or rye bread made from ergoty grain, just
the same as curare and digitalis are both poisons and medications.