Erysipelas, also known as St. Anthony's Fire, is an intensely red bacterial infection that occurs on the face and lower extremities.
The Temptation of St Anthony, a famous painting by the German artist Matthias Grünewald, depicts people with gangrenous digits, lurid rashes, ulcerations and dystonic postures. At the time of the painting, circa 1500 AD in the middle ages, this condition was known as St Anthony's Fire.
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another term for ergotism
Example sentencesExamples
One 9th century writer described an outbreak of "St. Anthony's Fire", or ergotism, caused by ingesting toxic amounts of the alkaloids produced by Claviceps purpurea, a fungus that infests rye.