From: "Ted White" <twhite8 at cox.net>
To: "WSFA members" <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: botox and the affluent
Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 12:21:46 -0400
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Kit Mason" <kit at hers.com>
To: "WSFA members" <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2003 11:43 AM
Subject: [WSFA] Re: botox and the affluent

[...]
>
> Botox is a toxic substance, and from an odd source, but so are a lot of
> other medicines.  Premarin, the most common women's hormone pill, is
> made from the urine of pregnant mares; penicillin is from bread mold;
> there's a type of migraine medicine (can't recall the name, sorry) that
> I used to take that was made from ergot, corn smut, which is a
> hallucinogenic poison.  In very small amounts, it relieved migraines
> better than anything else did for me at the time, and it didn't cause
> hallucinations or visions.

"Corn smut" (which is edible) is *not* "ergot," which is a fungus which
grows on rye and is deadly.   Ergot can be refined into LSD, and was used
by middle-ages witches because it caused visions.  There was a famous case
(in France or Belgium) in which townspeople ate ergot-tainted bread from a
local baker.  They stopped sleeping and gathered at all hours on street
corners to hold intense conversations, but within a week or two (of
unremitting "tripping") they all died.

--Ted White