Ergot is what I believe you are thinking of. It is a fungus that is particularly nasty.Siirenias wrote:Well, the hot cross bun remedy can potentially serious side-effect, especially for the time. There is a kind of fungus that can grow in breads that can cause psycotropic reactions...which is where werewolf stories are said to originate (peasant goes mad, people claim that it's posession/transformation into a wolf).
What I'm wondering is...and I jsut made this connection a few minutes ago...why are those lawyers wearing robes? At first, I thought the poor lawyer in the last few panels was a priest, what with the collar. It seems kind of strange to me...
April 29th - Plans and Confrontations
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Squeaky Bunny
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Honesty is the best policy, but insanity is a better defence. 
My understanding was that ergot likes only certain grains, ones that coincidentally were the staple of the poor in medieval times. This meant that hallucinogenic attacks were striking at exactly the sectors of the population least under observation by others and with the least inquisitive minds and scientific training. The results were likely often tragic.Squeaky Bunny wrote:Ergot is what I believe you are thinking of. It is a fungus that is particularly nasty.Siirenias wrote:Well, the hot cross bun remedy can potentially serious side-effect, especially for the time. There is a kind of fungus that can grow in breads that can cause psycotropic reactions...which is where werewolf stories are said to originate (peasant goes mad, people claim that it's posession/transformation into a wolf).
What I'm wondering is...and I jsut made this connection a few minutes ago...why are those lawyers wearing robes? At first, I thought the poor lawyer in the last few panels was a priest, what with the collar. It seems kind of strange to me...
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Wanderwolf
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Curiously, it seems to have also been at the heart of the Pied Piper story... the choromania associated with ergotism was the "dancing" that caused the children to follow the Piper out of town (and into a new life as colonists in what is now Romania).EdBecerra wrote:Ergot, which normally grows on rye, and was the source that led to the creation of the drug LSD.Siirenias wrote:Well, the hot cross bun remedy can potentially serious side-effect, especially for the time. There is a kind of fungus that can grow in breads that can cause psycotropic reactions...which is where werewolf stories are said to originate (peasant goes mad, people claim that it's posession/transformation into a wolf).
(see: http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/motm/lsd/lsd1_text.htm )
Yours truly,
The wolfish,
Wanderer
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Acolyte
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You might as well ask why a wizard wears a robe and pointy hat. It's probably just traditional occupational clothing for a lawyer. Even in the US, judges still wear robes. In the UK, lawyers (no longer limited to barristers, I believe) must wear robes and wig to argue in court, and the judges' costumes are far more elaborate. I believe robes are still customary for lawyers in court in Europe as well.Siirenias wrote:What I'm wondering is...and I jsut made this connection a few minutes ago...why are those lawyers wearing robes? At first, I thought the poor lawyer in the last few panels was a priest, what with the collar. It seems kind of strange to me...
In the old days, every occupation had its own recognizable "habit" by which its pratcitioners could be recognized. See, for example, Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" Act 1 Scene 1 where Flavius and Marullus, two tribunes, are upbraiding the commoners for wearing their festival clothing instead of their recognizable work clothes. (This reflects Shakespeare's time more than Caesars though.)
