
How Renaissance Painting Smoldered with a Little Known Hallucinogen - prismatic
https://hyperallergic.com/399385/how-renaissance-painting-smoldered-with-a-little-known-hallucinogen/
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pmoriarty
Just in case anyone's reading this and thinking _" man, I've got to get me
some of that sweet ergot"_: that's probably not the best idea.

 _" The symptoms [of ergotism] can be roughly divided into convulsive symptoms
and gangrenous symptoms._

 _" Convulsive symptoms of ergotism_

 _" Convulsive symptoms include painful seizures and spasms, diarrhea,
paresthesias, itching, mental effects including mania or psychosis, headaches,
nausea and vomiting._

 _" Gangrenous_

 _" The dry gangrene is a result of vasoconstriction induced by the
ergotamine-ergocristine alkaloids of the fungus. It affects the more poorly
vascularized distal structures, such as the fingers and toes. Symptoms include
desquamation or peeling, weak peripheral pulses, loss of peripheral sensation,
edema and ultimately the death and loss of affected tissues..."_

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergotism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergotism)

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xj9
if you want the good parts of ergot and you extract them you get...

LSD

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gbacon
_See also_ S4E13 (“Never Again”)[0] of _The X-Files_.

There is also a common theory that the Salem witch trials were at least in
part motivated by ergot, but there is at least a circumstantial case[1]
against it.

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_Again_%28The_X-
Files%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_Again_%28The_X-Files%29)

[1]: [http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/witches-curse-clues-
evidence...](http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/witches-curse-clues-
evidence/1501/)

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cat199
Or: how modern rationalists reinterpret historical records of psychic imagery
through a matierialist causality predicated on psychadelic chemicals, because
1960s.

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ch4s3
Are you suggesting that Bosch would have had no knowledge, or that outbreaks
during his life would have had no influence on his work? He was from a town
with a church dedicated to Saint Anthony, who was associated at the time with
ergot poisoning. The paper isn't even suggesting that he consumed ergot (as
that would have likely killed him), but that feverish hallucinations of its
victims may have influenced his visions of hell.

