The potential for health hazards from ergot-contaminated grain still exists. About ergotism or fire of St. Anthony is almost completely unheard of these days; at least as far as epidemics are concerned, they are associated exclusively with medieval times. However, everything changed with the 2003 European rye harvest when the ergot problem suddenly re-emerged! What the hell happened? What happened was that the “devil of the Middle Ages” did not go anywhere, he just hid for a while. And we stopped noticing him. But it returned periodically and will return, subject to the global natural cycle.