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st john's

Hi Michael, Victoria,
Have been thinking about SJW, and following your postings with interest.
Have I missed any correspondence from Richard Dufresne, who posted the
fascinating stuff on salvia divinorum ?

A few thoughts: 

References to medical knowledge in Roman times which do not reappear in
literature for centuries may simply fit the history of europe, i.e. the
decline and fall of the roman empire was also accompanied by the loss of
the knowledge accumulated by that civilisation .. the burning of the great
library of Alexandra, a general decline in engineering skills, the
decimation of the christian way of life until its reintroduction by Irish
etc. The much talked of destruction of the rainforests must involve a
similar parallel loss of local knowledge as the indigenous culture is
threatened. 

Thinking about books from this period reminds me of an ancient Irish legal
wrangle over copyright recorded in folklore, or is it folk-law in this case
? . As books were written on calfskin at the time, the judgement given by
the local king was "to every cow its calf, to every book its copy". Point
being that books were few and far between, and involved a mini industry in
the making ! 

I also remember that there were considerable problems with ergotine ?
(sorry I'm not an agricultural student, thinking of a fungal growth which
can affect wheat) poisoning of wheat in pre-spray times. Some medieval
historians have suggested that hallucinations and the idea of possesion by
the devil, may have arisen due to hallucinatory side effects of eating such
wheat; even that disease free wheat was eaten by the nobles and the rest
fed to the peasantry to keep them in a revolt-free, drugged state. A bit
far-fetched ? Gets one thinking ... are there crack riots ? 

Mark
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