Constitutional diseases, such as ergotism, anthrax, and septicemia, predispose to gangrene.

Outbreaks of ergotism are rare today, but a few did occur in the twentieth century.

For some time, ergotism looked like a good contender.

Wood also mentions a species of ergotism characterized by epileptic paroxysms, which he calls "spasmodic ergotism."

Long before Albert Hofmann extracted lysergic acid from ergot to make LSD, people infected with ergotism had bad LSD-like trips of their own.

States are not governed by ergotisms.

As Sir Thomas Browne said long ago, nations are not governed by ergotisms (or as we should say syllogisms) but by instinct and common sense.