Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1811 Excerpt:...back. The plant seldom grows above two feet high, and is much branched. There is a variety with white flowers. This species is a native of France and Spain, where it is grown for feeding horses, and hence its specific name of " Sativus," which signifies cultivated. The flour made from the peas when ground, if mixed with an equal quantity of wheat flour, makes excellent bread, but taken alone it produces an extraordinary rigidity of the muscles. In the year 1671, a famine having oceurred in Wirtemberg on aceount of the failure of the wheat crops, the peasants made their bread entirely of this flour After living upon it for some days, some of them began to find themselves strangely affected; one man when he bent his arm could not straighten it again; and a neighbour who laughed at him found that he could not bring his mouth back to its original form, but that he was doomed to wear an eternal grin. The medical men applied to by the afflicted and terrified people were at a loss how to act, for warm baths, and all the usual remedies for the rigidity produced by cold, seemed to have no effect. In the end, though no one died, yet as it was found impossible to restore the rigid muscles to their natural action, the evil was thought so serious, that the Duke of Wirtemberg issued an edict forbidding the use of this flour in any emergency; and similar edicts have been issued by some of his suecessors. It was remarkable that at the very time that this flour was producing such unpleasant effects, the green herb was eaten by cattle without injury. Pigs fed on the meal, however, lost the use of their limbs, though they grew very fat lying on the ground. It was observed that the meal from plants grown on a rich strong soil, was much more injurious than that made f...