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Originally posted by SigmaNunki:
Let me see, from this:

"Usually, the sufferers have had a high level of communal stress."

I would gather that one person breaks and then that persons duties/etc would fall to the others. Then in those people having additional stress, and one person less in support, someone (or more) would break. And so on. A sort of domino effect. But, then with rest, the problem lifts and the cycle starts all over again.

I would imagine that this would happen more often in communities where the community members are more reliant on each other. The statements "three indigenous communities" (from the article) and "small village in Lebanon" (from the referenced pubmed abstract) would seem to support this theory.

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Convulsive symptoms include painful seizures and spasms, diarrhea, paresthesias, itching, headaches, nausea and vomiting. Usually the gastrointestinal effects precede central nervous system effects. As well as seizures there can be hallucinations resembling those produced by LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide, to which the ergot alkaloid ergotamine is an immediate precursor and therefore shares some structural similarities), and mental effects including mania or psychosis.

Epidemics of the disease were identified throughout history, though the references in classical writers are inconclusive. Rye, the main vector for transmitting ergotism, was not grown much around the Mediterranean. When Fuchs 1834 separated references to ergotism from erysipelas and other afflictions he found the earliest reference to ergotism in the Annales Xantenses for the year 857: "a Great plague of swollen blisters consumed the people by a loathsome rot, so that their limbs were loosened and fell off before death."

In the Middle Ages the gangrenous poisoning was known as ignis sacer ("holy fire") or "Saint Anthony's fire", named after monks of the Order of St. Anthony who were particularly successful at treating this ailment. The 12th century chronicler Geoffroy du Breuil of Vigeois recorded the mysterious outbreaks in the Limousin region of France, where the gangrenous form of ergotism was associated with the local Saint Martial as much as Saint Anthony.

The blight, named from the cock's spur it forms on grasses, was identified and named by Denis Dodart who reported the relation between ergotized rye and bread poisoning in a letter to the French Royal Academy of Sciences in 1676 (John Ray mentioning ergot for the first time in English the next year), but "ergotism" in this modern sense was first recorded in 1853.

Notable epidemics of ergotism, at first seen as a punishment from God, occurred up into the 19th century. Fewer outbreaks have occurred since then, because in developed countries rye is carefully monitored.

There is evidence[1] of ergot poisoning serving a ritual purpose in the ritual killing of certain bog bodies. Found in peat swamps, Grauballe Man and Tollund Man have been preserved so well that large amounts of rotten cereals and weeds have been extracted from their stomachs, clearly showing force-feeding and primitive sedation.

When milled the ergot is reduced to a red powder, obvious in lighter grasses but easy to miss in dark rye flour. In less wealthy countries ergotism still occurs: there was an outbreak in Ethiopia in mid-2001 from contaminated barley. Whenever there is a combination of moist weather, cool temperatures, delayed harvest in lowland crops and rye consumption an outbreak is possible. Russia has been particularly afflicted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergotism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lsd

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