Showing posts with label St. Geneviève. Show all posts
Showing posts with label St. Geneviève. Show all posts

Sunday, February 4, 2024

Ergot Poisoning

The term "ergot" refers to a group of fungi that grow on rye and other grains. The illustration shows a stalk of wheat with a growth that is part of the life cycle of the fungus Claviceps purpurea, the chief source of ergot. The fungus produces alkaloids that, when consumed by mammals, produces ergotism, or ergot poisoning.

There are two main symptoms of ergotism. There are convulsive symptoms that range from mild such as headaches, nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, to severe: spasms, mania, and psychosis. There is also a set of gangrenous symptoms because of the vasoconstrictive nature of ergot: loss of circulation in the fingers and toes that can lead to loss of the fingers and toes themselves.

Ergot could also affect the nervous system and make the sufferer feel sensations on the skin without any external source. In the Middle Ages this was called St. Anthony's Fire.

Although ergot could infect other grains, rye was the likeliest source in the Middle Ages. Rye was considered a less desirable grain for bread than wheat, and was therefore the grain of the poor—which covered most of the agricultural population. Grains infected with ergot are darkened. Ergot-infected grains in a bushel of wheat would stand out from their color and could easily be picked out. The darker rye would more easily hide the infected grains, especially once it was ground into flour.

Medieval doctors had no cure, and so people turned to divine intervention. The 12th-century chronicler Geoffroy du Breuil recorded outbreaks in the Limousin region of France, where cures were attributed to Saint Martial. An outbreak in Paris in 1129 was cured by relics of St. Genevieve.

Ergot's life-cycle starts in the ground. The spores that produce ergot can survive for one year, and cannot germinate if buried more than an inch below the surface. As it turns out, simple crop rotation, that puts a non-grain crop in a field that held a grain, can cause the ergot present to die out without a host. Also, this post (from almost exactly 10 years ago) explains how the mouldboard plow was better at turning over the heavy soil of Europe, which could help to bury the spores deep enough to prevent germination.

In the words of the sixteenth-century physician Paracelsus. “All things are poison, and nothing is without poison: the dose alone makes a thing not poison.” Claviceps purpurea has produced other compounds thanks to modern science. Ergotamine, for instance, is used for the treatment of migraines because of its vasoconstrictive ability. The drug LSD was synthesized in 1938 from lysergic acid, which is derived from ergotamine.

Because a cure was attributed to St. Anthony, a hospital was founded in his name to treat others. Let me tell you tomorrow about the Hospital Brothers of Saint Anthony. See you then.

Friday, May 13, 2022

St. Geneviève

St. Geneviève was born a peasant in Nanterre around 419/22 CE. One day, while St. Germanus was passing through Nanterre, she told him she wanted to devote herself to God. He told her she should live a life espoused to Christ. At the age of 15, she decided to devote herself to the Christian life and move to Lutetia.

She spent 30 years mortifying her flesh through extensive fasting and abstaining from meat. Her austerity was considered excessive by her ecclesiastical superiors, who urged her to deprive herself less. She drew many visitors due to her piety, even divine visitors: she reported so many visions of angels that those jealous of her threatened to drown her in a lake. A visit by St. Germanus convinced her detractors to trust her.

Her piety was so strong that, when Attila was approaching Paris in 451, she convinced the people to pray instead of fleeing; the strength of her prayers turned the Huns instead to attack Orléans instead (I guess they did not have a saint to pray for them). In 464, Clovis and his father Childeric were besieging Paris (Gallo-Roman clergy were very resistant to the Frankish attempt to bring all of Gaul under its banner), Geneviève crossed their lines to bring grain to the city, and persuaded them to be merciful to the citizens.

Clotilde, the wife of King Clovis, was a patron and supporter of Geneviève, and may have commissioned her biography. Clotilde—a Catholic whom Clovis married partially to placate the clergy, whose cooperation he eventually realized he would need—was known for religious patronage; you can read about an example here.

Clovis (no doubt at Clotilde's urging) built an abbey where Geneviève could live. After her death, her tomb at the abbey saw many visitors and many miracles. In 1129, an epidemic of ergot poisoning was ravaging the city; it subsided after her relics were paraded through town.

Louis XV ordered a new church for the "patron saint of Paris." Before it was finished, her relics were destroyed in 1793 during the French Revolution, but some were recovered, and the church was finished and reconsecrated in 1885.

I was going to talk next about why she moved to "Lutetia" (see the first paragraph) and yet was called the "patron saint of Paris," but right now I really want to talk about ergot poisoning, so that's next.

Thursday, May 12, 2022

Germanus of Auxerre, Part 2

After Germanus defeated the Pelagians in Briton (through sheer force of his rhetorical skills, apparently, having studied eloquence and having argued the law), Germanus celebrated at the shrine of St. Alban (the first British Christian martyr). That night, St. Alban appeared to Germanus in a dream, telling the details of his martyrdom. Germanus had the story written down next morning. Our only record of St. Alban is the Passio Albani, ("Passion of [St.] Alban"), written in either the 5th or 6th century. Some scholars feel it is likely that we only have any information regarding St. Alban because Germanus had it written down.

Another anecdote about him in the Historia Brittonum ("History of the Britons," mentioned once before here) has him traveling to Britain a second time in the mid 430s or 440s, at which time he condemned for incest Guorthigern, the Vortigern of Welsh tales who figures into stories of Arthur. Vortigern tried to humiliate Germanus by having his daughter declare the bishop as the father of her child. In retaliation, Germanus cursed Vortigern, who fled into Wales pursued by Germanus and others. Vortigern holed up in a castle; Germanus and his group fasted and prayed for three days; fire from heaven fell on the castle, destroying it and all within. No historian gives any value to this story, but it is an example of Germanus' reputation.

He died in Ravenna; his feast day is 31 July.

His name lives on, at the Abbey of Saint-Germain d'Auxerre, at the church Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois which stands across from the Louvre, and several St. Germanus churches in England. He also makes appearances in literature and other media; his 2nd mission to Britain is included in the 2004 movie King Arthur, opposite Clive Owen as Arthur; in 2007, his character appears in The Last Legion where he leads the Romans and Britons against the Picts.

But back to that little girl he saw in Nanterre (see the illustration); what he told her more specifically was that she should live her life as if she were espoused to Christ. Apparently, that's exactly what she did. Tomorrow I'll introduce you to St. Geneviève of Paris.