Ergot Controversy

A fear of ergot has been subtly inseminated throughout the U. S. during the last year, adding to the trepidation of conception. This week the source of that fear, a trade controversy, became public.

Ergot is rotted rye. A fungus grows on the rye head and eats away the grains. What is left is a collection of hard bodies, each shaped like a cock's spur. Hence the name ergot, from French argot (spur). Good, dry ergot is of inestimable value in obstetrics. Its extract contracts the uterus and arteries, stops hemorrhages, raises blood pressure. Good ergot saves the lives and bolsters the health of hundreds of thousands of women annually. But bad ergot may contain poisons which cause abscesses and kill. U. S. pharmacists get their raw ergot from Spain, Portugal, Poland and Russia.

A man who makes it his business to examine samples of ergot from all countries is Dr. Henry Hurd Rusby, 74, professor of botany, physiology and materia medica at Columbia University since 1888. The condition of Spanish and Portuguese ergot Dr. Rusby has usually found good. The usual condition of Polish and Russian ergot has horrified him. He has found it mixed with black-eyed worms and gray lice. Samples were consistently old and mouldy. Extracts often killed experimental animals.

All last year good Dr. Rusby tried to raise a scandal. It spread subtly to women and has scared them. Doctors, however, paid no attention to his exclamations. They knew that manufacturing druggists who use dirty Polish and Russian ergot cleanse and refine it thoroughly when preparing ergot extracts, that the extracts sold by reputable pharmaceutical houses satisfy the high U. S. Pharmacopoeia standards for the drug. In addition to ignoring Dr. Rusby's scandal, they were vexed to learn that his good friend, Howard W. Ambruster, Manhattan importer, held a corner on all the Rusby-approved Spanish and Portuguese ergot. They imputed to Dr. Rusby a too-willing protagonism in a mere trade controversy.