A girl managed to get infected with a "medieval curse" (5 photo)

Do you think it is possible to literally plunge into the Middle Ages in the modern world? And now it is not about a reenactors' meeting, but about real madness.





And now a minute of history. In the Middle Ages there was such a strange disease - "St. Anthony's fire" or "witches' cramps". Often people who caught this disease were considered to be possessed by demons. Well, this is not surprising, judging by the symptoms, an ignorant person, seeing such a patient for the first time, could really think that he was possessed. Symptoms included vomiting blood, convulsions, and various disorders of the central nervous system with psychosis. In the extreme stages of the disease, gangrene of the extremities began.



Only Europe endured several dozen epidemics. But in fact, it was, of course, not a curse or evil damage from demons. Everything is simple to the point of banality. The culprit was the most simple poisoning by ergot. Ergot is a type of fungus that parasitizes rye. Cereals affected by the fungus acquire the shape of curved horns from light brown to purple-brown.





Eating bread made from grain contaminated with this nasty stuff led to this disease.

The last officially registered case of infection with this disease was in the south of France, in the city of Pont-Saint-Esprit in 1951. Then 250 residents fell ill, 4 of them died. The registered case of infection was recorded.

So, that's what I'm talking about, oh yeah, not long ago a young American woman came down with a hellish burning sensation in her legs. The examination showed damage to the limbs bordering on gangrenous.



The legs of a girl infected with "St. Anthony's fire"

The girl was saved, but the toe on one foot had to be cut off. The doctors thought for a long time about what had happened to her. They looked through the archives and only then realized that this young lady had caught a greeting from the Middle Ages.



Nobody has heard of this disease for too long. Modern farming methods practically eliminate human infection.