What was St Anthony's fire caused by?
Correspondingly, what was St Anthony's fire?
St. Anthony's fire: One of several conditions characterized by intense inflammation of the skin, such as from erysipelas or ergotism. Erysipelas is a type of spreading hot, bright-red strep skin infection.
Likewise, why is Ergotism called St Anthony's fire?
The frequent epidemics of ergotism were called Holy Fire or st-Antony's Fire in the Middle Ages, because of the burning sensations resulting in gangrene of limbs. It was caused by eating rye bread contaminated with the fungus Claviceps purpurea.
ːrg?tˌ?z?m/ UR-g?t-iz-?m) is the effect of long-term ergot poisoning, traditionally due to the ingestion of the alkaloids produced by the Claviceps purpurea fungus—from the Latin noun clava meaning club, and the suffix -ceps meaning head, i.e. the purple club-headed fungus—that infects rye and other