ABSTRACT
The introduction of ergot in 1807, and of pituitary extract about one hundred years later, radically transformed the perception and the process of labor (read more on the topic of prolonged labor in the chapter on Anesthesia and Analgesia). Toxic symptoms were ‘officially’ reported as being due to contamination with an agricultural fungicide, but John Fuller (1968) investigated the affair and was convinced that ergotism was responsible. Ergot soon became an essential drug in the obstetric materia medica but, despite the early warnings of dramatic side effects, the remedy was used inappropriately in early labor and soon led to deaths of mothers and infants due to the almost incessant action it induced in the uterus. Ergot was admitted to the Pharmacopoeia of the London College of Physicians in 1836 and thus, within 30 years of John Stearns original report, ergot became firmly established in Europe and was included in the various materiae medica throughout the continent.
