Secale cornutum
Made from ergot — the rye fungus that poisoned whole villages with St Anthony's fire, and the source of ergotamine and ergometrine, real modern drugs.
The whole picture, in one breath
Think of a body drying and blackening: cold dry skin that does not sweat and cannot get warm, cramps and tingling, bleeding of thin dark fluid, a strange relief from cold and from uncovering — and, in the proving, the picture of ergotism itself. The cold dry uncovered bleeder: that is Secale.
The substance, in plain words
Ergot is the purple-black fungus of rye ears. Its alkaloids constrict blood vessels — at low doses real drugs: ergotamine for migraine, ergometrine to stop post-partum haemorrhage, both genuine, life-used medicines. At high doses they caused ergotism — the gangrenous 'holy fire' of medieval chronicles.
The traditional picture Classical sources
The inner state
- Indifference and weakness. Passive, doesn't complain, lets things happen; anxious only in the intervals.
- Restlessness of the legs. Constant motion of the lower limbs, worse night.
- Anxiety with the cramps. Fear during the cramping and tingling paroxysms.
The body
- Cold dry skin, won't sweat. The keynote: skin cold, dry, shrivelled; the person wants to be uncovered yet is freezing.
- Bleeding of thin dark fluid. Passive, oozing, dark bleeding — from uterus, bowel, wounds.
- Better from cold and uncovering. The strange amelioration: cold air and throwing off covers relieve, unlike every chilly remedy.
- Cramps and tingling. Cramps in calves, tingling and formication — the ergot nerve picture.
- Gangrene picture. The old books record it in the black, dead, painless extremities of ergotism.
- Worse warmth and heat. Warmth worsens the constriction; the cold relieves it.
Modalities (worse and better factors)
| Worse from ⬇ | Better from ⬇ |
|---|---|
| warmth and hot coverings; heat of the bed; exertion; night. | cold air; uncovering; rest. |
Where it acts (organ affinities)
Circulation and blood vessels, uterus (bleeding), skin and extremities, nerves.
Where the classical picture comes from
Ergotism — St Anthony's fire — was among the great poisoning epidemics of the Middle Ages: burning limbs, cramps, blackened extremities, and the famous dancing pilgrimage of 1374. The proving restated the toxicology, and the remedy became the classical portrait of the constricted, cold, uncovered circulation.
The substance in real medicine Pharmacology
What this section is: the pharmacology and toxicology of the source substance. It is not clinical evidence that a homeopathic preparation of it treats any condition. What controlled trials do and do not show is set out on the Evidence page.
Ergot's alkaloids are real, working drugs: ergotamine still treats migraine, ergometrine still prevents maternal deaths from bleeding after childbirth — one of obstetrics' most important medicines. The same fungus that caused the holy fire carries two of pharmacology's most reliable instruments — the poison and the pharmacy in one rye ear.
Look-alikes (how the classical authors told it apart)
| Remedy | Looks similar because… | Tells it apart because… |
|---|---|---|
| Crotalus horridus | Dark bleeding, venom family | Crotalus is drowsy, purple and oozing black; Secale is cold, dry, uncovered and thin-bleeding. |
| Hamamelis virginiana | Passive bleeding | Hamamelis is bruised-vein bleeding; Secale the constricted, cold, uncovered one. |
| Camphora | Cold collapse | Camphora is icy and unrelieved by warmth; Secale is icy and relieved by cold and uncovering. |
| Veratrum album | Cold sweat, cramps | Veratrum sweats cold with rice-water discharges; Secale is dry, cold and uncovered. |