no Tleraptic Value j! Ergot 
By J. W. COMPTON, M. D. Tub Therapeutic Value of Ergot. 
By J. w. COMPTON, M. D., 
Prof, of Materia Medica and Therapeutics in the Medical College of Evansville, Ind. 
(Reprint from The Detroit Lancet, March, 1879. 
To the earnest physician, studiously engaged in the promo- 
tion of science and the rational application of remedies to the 
cure of disease, there is a pleasant satisfaction in being able 
to announce, that as medical men. we live in an age of progress 
and investigation, when the balanced mind of the medical 
practitioner is unwilling to receive the ipse dixit of others with- 
out first submitting their propositions to the crucible of science 
or at least to the analogical tests of reason and common sense; 
that practitioners are no longer led by the invisible fingers of 
superstition to administer remedies recommended alone by the 
blind followers of tradition. 
It is also gratifying to be able to announce that our medical 
journals and medical societies of to-day are disseminating among 
the ranks of the profession, the latest discoveries both in appli- 
ances and remedies, the result of practical experience and clinical 
investigation. It is through the medium of investigation and 
the untiring research it may be in some cases of a life-time, .by 
men of master minds educated in all the collateral branches in 
the vast field of science, that the profession of medicine is to 
come in possession of such information as will enable the prac- 
ticing physician to secure a knowledge of all the valuable uses 
to which remedies new and old may be applicable. 
In discussing the therapeutic value of ergot, it is not neces- 
sary that I should enter into any detailed history of this valuable 4 
THE THERAPEUTIC VALUE OF ERGOT*. 
remedy; and it will be sufficient to call attention in passing to 
the potency of the remedy under consideration, and that a 
parasitic fungus character is attached to the grain from the 
very beginning of its development, whicli imparts to it, if given 
in improper doses, or if continued too long, certain poisonous 
properties. Ergot has long been used empirically in Europe 
and on the continent by midwives in parturition. It was first 
brought to the notice of the profession of the United States in 
1807 by Dr. Stearns, of Saratoga, New York. The periodicals 
of that day teemed with laudations of its efficacy in facilitating 
parturition. They did not appear to know that it possessed any 
other therapeutic value than that of producing uterine contrac- 
tions and hastening delivery. They did not enlighten the pro- 
fession in regard to the indications or contra indications for its 
administration, except to use it when labor was tardy and pro- 
tracted. 
During the intervening time up to the present, practitioners 
reasoning from its physiological action and from repeated clini- 
cal experiments have discovered that the remedy may be advan- 
tageously employed in a large number of diseases, and many have 
become enthusiasts on the subject of the therapeutic value of 
ergot. 
The principal diseases and diseased conditions in which it 
may be employed with advantage, and in which its administra- 
tion is indicated by reason of its known physiological action, 
may be enumerated : hemorrhages from the uterus, lungs, 
stomach, nose, bowels, bladder, in a word all classes of passive 
hemorrhages. In purpura hemorrhagica, writers have attested 
its marked efficacy, and so far as I have had opportunity of 
testing its controlling influence over the blood vessels in this 
disease, I have found its administration to result in well marked 
benefit. 
By injecting this remedy into the varicose veins, it is 
claimed for it, that it contracts the veins and proves to be an 
excellent remedy. Hemorrhoids belong to this class and good 
cures may result fi'om its use. 
Administered in the intractable vomiting of pregnancy it THE THERAPEUTIC VALUE OF ERGOT. 
5 
will arrest or so diminish the secretions as to greatly relieve and 
even cure the disease. There are few physicians who have 
practiced medicine any considerable length of time, who have 
not more or less often been under the necessity of exhausting 
the entire catalogue of remedies, whilst their anxious patients 
were well nigh exhausted from the incorrigible vomiting of preg- 
nancy. Dr. Smith, at that time vice-president of the Tri-State 
Medical Society, read a very interesting paper before the society 
in 1876 on this exceedingly troublesome disease. I can only 
give the substantial points in this paper from memory, as it has 
I believe, never been published. 
His patient, in the case reported, was afflicted with the vom- 
iting of pregnancy in its most distressing form. 
He employed successively all the remedies at hand or of 
which he could learn, without being able to control the terrible 
disease. He called in counsel to no better purpose. His patient 
became so reduced that her life was despaired of. With the 
consulting physicians in attendance with him at this critical 
time, it was decided that to produce abortion gave his patient 
the only remaining chance for her life; but before assuming so 
grave a responsibility, he decided to consult an old physician 
some distance away. 
A letter was sent describing the alarming condition of his 
patient, that the doctor might be stimulated to lose no time 
unnecessarily in reaching the bedside of the almost dying 
patient. The doctor was too sick to leave home, but as the 
letter explained the conditions and that the last consultation 
resulted in an agreement to produce abortion, he advised them 
to do so without hesitation. Thus fortified, as soon as the 
messenger returned arrangements were made to carry this into 
effect. The remedy was at hand and to make sure work a large 
portion of a strong decoction of ergot was administered to the 
patient, but instead of producing labor pains, it arrested the 
vomiting, the patient took a good refreshing sleep, awoke with 
a desire for food, went on to the full term and gave birth to a 
healthy living child. 6 
THE THERAPEUTIC VALlTE OE ERGOT. 
This accidental discovery of the specific effect of ergot in 
the vomiting of pregnancy, induced Dr. Smith and all the 
physicians who became acquainted with this case, to adopt it as 
the remedy in this disease, and they declare they have never 
been disappointed in its good effects. I have treated some 
cases of heamaturia with unmistakably good results. The reme- 
dy appears to exert its good effects in this disease as it does in 
many others, by contracting and lessening the calibre of the 
veins and arteries through its peculiar power of contracting 
muscular fibre, and in this manner arrests hemorrhage. It also 
arrests profuse perspiration by contracting the capillaries, and 
the same good office may be realized on all undue secretions and 
secreting canals. 
In treatment of tumors of the uterus, its contracting power 
over the muscles of the organ forces the tumor down, and facil- 
itates its removal. As in these cases there is nearly always 
hemorrhage, the remedy is of signal service as a hemostatic. 
In chronic sub-acute metritis it lessens the vascularity of 
the organ by contracting the blood vessels, and by inducing a 
state of tonic contraction aids in securing a healthy tone of the 
organ. 
In leucorrhcea and profuse menstruation associated 
together it fulfills all the indications, and will be found an 
excellent remedy. 
In that sad and disgusting infirmity, incontinence of urine, 
where the contractility of the bladder has been impaired by re- 
laxation of its coats, or from immoderate distention, we possess 
in ergot, when systematically administered, a remedy peculiarly 
adapted to the contraction of the muscular fibres, and so giving 
tone to the coats of the organ as to cure vesical paralysis, upon 
which this disease usually depends. 
Where cases of hematemesis have resisted the usual reme- 
dies, such as lead, opium and sulphuric acid, ergot has been 
reported successful, with no more vomiting of blood after the 
second dose. Its internal administration in cases of this kind 
is recommended by the fact that it is neither a stimulant nor 
an excitant. THE THERAPEUTIC VALUE OF ERGOT. 
7 
The well established power possessed by ergot over the 
circular muscular fibres has suggested the use of this remedy in 
pneumonia, and the results have been most satisfactory, “in 
some cases creating quite an enthusiasm in its favor ; the tem- 
perature was reduced, dyspnoea less troublesome, sputum con- 
taining less blood, cough much less painful and less frequent ; 
indeed, marked improvement in all the symptoms.” It has 
recently been claimed for it that it possesses the power of 
aborting pneumonia. 
In gonorrhoea and gleet and in spermatorrhoea, good results 
are claimed to have been secured from the administration of 
the remedy. 
In view of its physiological action we may expect good 
results in diarrhoea, particularly where dysenteric symptoms are 
found. It will exert a good influence over derangements of the 
heart, especially where the cardiac action is enfeebled. 
Ergot meets all the indications in the treatment of whoop- 
ing cough by arresting undue secretion, and contracting over- 
distended blood-vessels. The same power gives to it a promi- 
nence in the treatment of enlargement of the spleen. 
Its physiological control over the blood-vessels of the spinal 
cord and brain, gives this remedy a specific influence over their 
congestions and inflammations and in the delirium of low conges- 
tive forms of fever. In the hospitals of Europe they are now 
treating severe cases of typhoid fever with the remedy in ques- 
tion. 
I shall condense the statement of the first of a number of 
cases reported from the Hospital Lariboisiere, admitted on 12th 
day of the disease. The tongue was very dry and brown, the 
gums were covered with sordes, speech was difficult, and the 
ideas confused. At night there was constant delirium, with 
subsultus and other nervous phenomena, great pain in the back 
of the neck, opisthotonos at times, and symptoms like meningi- 
tis. The next day the abdomen was retracted and signs of col- 
lapse seemed to portend an early death. Thirty grains of ergot 
given during the day. On the following morning there was a 
considerable modification of all the grave symptoms. The 8 
THK THERAPEUTIt VALUE OF EKOOT. 
muscular twitchings had ceased, the abdomen less drawn in, and 
the general condition improved. The ergot was continued three 
days, after which time indications of danger had entirely disap- 
peared, and the fever ran its course with moderate severity. 
As a reliable and indispensable remedy in uterine hemor- 
rhages it has no equal; and in inertia of the uterus for increasing 
both the force and frequency of the contractions and the expul- 
sive power of the uterus in parturition, its efficacy and value are 
well understood and freely admitted by the profession. So 
much has recently been written attesting the therapeutic value 
of ergot, that it will prove both a subject of interest and profit 
to all who will undertake its perusal. 
Dr. John L. Cook claimed that ergot was a remedy of much 
value in the treatment of yellow fever, especially in the hemor- 
rhagic forms of that disease. That its administration would be 
indicated in all acute inflammations in the congestive stages, 
before exudation, as it diminishes heat by reducing the capacity 
of the capillary circulation, and by contracting the blood-vessels 
would greatly tend to arrest undue secretion and hemorrhage, 
which is found to be a troublesome characteristic in this class 
of diseases.