One of the oldest organic life forms is mushrooms. They appeared on Earth more than 185 million years ago, long before the appearance of man. Nowadays, the role of fungi in nature and human life is great: being present at all levels of the biosphere, both in water and on land, they decompose organic materials and contribute to the formation of fertile soil; they are an essential component of the digestive system of many mammals. However, sometimes the "relationship" between animals and fungi takes on amazing and terrifying forms …
Epidemic of madness
In the spring of 2010, a small region of East Africa was engulfed in an outbreak of a mysterious and deadly disease - nodding syndrome, affecting mostly children. People against their will made characteristic nodding movements every 5-8 seconds. In addition, they had seizures akin to epileptic seizures - the patients could not control their actions, they tried to commit suicide. Some went to the forest and did not come back, others, completely ceasing to eat, died of exhaustion. The patients' brains atrophied with horrifying speed, violent hallucinations appeared, and then death occurred. More than 8,000 cases have been reported. And this, according to the disappointing forecasts of experts, is only the beginning …
The first case of nodding syndrome was recorded in the remote mountainous regions of Tanzania in 1962. Since then, the disease has slowly spread, invading new territories. In 1982, she appeared in Uganda, and in 2010 she came to Sudan, where she acquired a very grotesque form - more than 80 people from the Kordofan province now and then went into fits of hysterical laughter, which alternated with prolonged fainting.
Special wheat
Scientists investigating the disease suggested that the cause of the epidemics was the helminth Onchocerca volvulus, which lives inside humans, and the carrier was the female black flies Simulium damnosum. Worms, moved by midges, settle in human lymph nodes, where females give birth to many larvae. The latter penetrate under the epidermis, causing a person to have epileptic seizures, blindness and mental disorders. The hypothesis turned out to be wrong: black flies are common in all corners of the Black Continent, and strange epidemics broke out only in some parts of it.
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Sudanese doctors, who did not attach much importance to the "epidemic of laughter", prescribed sleeping pills and sedatives to the patients, but by February 2011 the situation had worsened. Attacks began to be accompanied by outbursts of aggression and violence: superstitious people killed themselves and persecuted their fellow tribesmen, accusing them of witchcraft. The police even arrested several "sorcerers" who allegedly put a curse on the residents. A team of doctors who arrived in the province managed to find out that the sick were eating wheat of a special experimental variety. It was grown in laboratory fields in Darfur and it is unknown how it got to the markets of the neighboring province of Kordofan.
After the research, it was possible to find the cause of the mysterious disease - it is the parasitic fungi Claviceps purpurea, called ergot, or uterine horns, the thunderstorm of all cereals. Mushrooms, being in the form of sclerotia (bodies consisting of woven filaments of fungal mycelium) in the soil, infect more than 170 cultivated and wild-growing cereals: sclerotia form in the ears instead of grains - black-purple horns containing ergotamine and other alkaloids, the use of which causes involuntary contractions muscle and mental disorders.
"Witches" in the rye
For the first time, they learned about ergot in ancient Greece: in the texts that have come down to us, the drink kykeon is mentioned, which was used in religious rituals (eleusinia) and was a squeeze from barley grains affected by ergot.
With the onset of the era of Christianity, rye appeared in Europe - and outbreaks of disease began. The first was the epidemic of "Anthony's Fire", named after the monk, the founder of the Order of St. Anthony - an institution that studied and dealt with ailments. The disease (called by modern physicians ergotism) was accompanied by burning and intense fever, nervous convulsions and epileptic seizures, gangrene, drying out and atrophy of the extremities, sometimes leading to loss of the nose, fingers and toes, feet and powerful hallucinations, which only complicated the process of study and treatment … This is how the medieval author describes the disease: "The great curse in the form of inflated bubbles destroyed people, turning them into disgusting rot." In 994, bread baked from infected grain killed 40,000 people in France, and a little later, in 1129, another 1,500 died.
It is possible that it was the hallucinogenic effects of ergot and its prevalence in the 15th century that led to the emergence of the "witch hunt" phenomenon. According to the chronicles of the Middle Ages, sick people often stated that they saw demons, feeling a kind of "fire devouring from within," and accused their neighbors of witchcraft directed against them. For example, poisoning with contaminated rye in Massachusetts in 1692 led to the infamous Salem Trial, in which 20 people were killed on charges of witchcraft and about 200 went to prison.
Only in 1676, six centuries after the "Anthony's fire", was the true cause of the pandemic discovered. Millers who lived in the Middle Ages often sold flour, ground from grain spoiled with ergot, to the poor, setting aside pure rye for wealthy clients. Once the cause was identified, the control of the mills allowed outbreaks to be quickly suppressed. Gradually the "witch-hunt" itself came to naught.
The last serious case of an outbreak of ergotism was the poisoning that occurred in the French city of Pont-Saint-Esprit in 1951: more than 1,000 people claimed that they were being attacked by terrible monsters, and fireballs were falling from the sky.
All in all, according to the most conservative estimates, ergot has caused the death of two million people (unless, of course, not counting the victims of the "witch hunt", the number of which is about five million) - and today this horrifying figure continues to grow.
"Main" on Earth?
It happened that mushrooms changed entire landscapes - both natural and artificially created. At the beginning of the 21st century, the eastern states of the United States completely lost their chestnut forests, destroyed by the fungi Criphonectria parasitica, which cause cancerous lesions of the bark.
And more recently, German scientists received irrefutable proof that zombies do exist: parasitic fungi were discovered in Germany, which not only poisoned the body and intoxicated the mind of the owner, but also … took possession of his brain! Parasites skillfully controlled the behavior of carpenter ants: clinging to an insect, they germinated inside and secreted alkaloid substances, under the influence of which the insects left the colony and went in search of moist and warm places - an ideal environment for the development of fungi. Having reached the goal, the insects died and became a natural fertilizer for the parasites.
As terrible as it is, these mushrooms live not only in forests and fields. Are you constantly feeling irritated and exhausted? Do not enroll yourself in the ranks of hypochondriacs, try to explore the darkest and most difficult corners of the house - and you will most likely find Aspergillus, mold fungi there. These microorganisms spread in thin layers along the walls and panels of houses and exude a smell, from which a person loses vital energy day after day, without thinking about the true cause of his condition. Anthracene oil and a solution of copper sulfate will help to destroy the parasite.
Despite the fact that man is the "crown of creation" and "the king of nature", he, like the Martian invaders from Wells's famous novel "The War of the Worlds", risks falling prey to pathogens. And only an attentive attitude to nature will help us to protect ourselves from its surprises and … ourselves.
Source: "Secrets of the XX century" No. 2