Life expectancy was short owing to overwork, overexposure, and the afflictions of dysentery, tuberculosis, pneumonia, asthma, tooth decay, and the terrible rash called St. Anthony’s Fire, which by constriction of the blood vessels (not then understood) could consume a limb as by “some hidden fire” and sever it from the body. In modern times the disease has been identified in some cases as erysipelas and in others as ergot poisoning caused by a fungus on rye flour kept too long over the winter.
Life expectancy was short owing to overwork, overexposure, and the afflictions of dysentery, tuberculosis, pneumonia, asthma, tooth decay, and the terrible rash called St. Anthony’s Fire, which by constriction of the blood vessels (not then understood) could consume a limb as by “some hidden fire” and sever it from the body. In modern times the disease has been identified in some cases as erysipelas and in others as ergot poisoning caused by a fungus on rye flour kept too long over the winter.
