1951 Pont-Saint-Esprit mass poisoning
The 1951 Pont-Saint-Esprit mass poisoning, also known as Le Pain Maudit, was a mass poisoning on 15 August 1951, in the small town of Pont-Saint-Esprit in southern France. More than 250 people were involved, including 50 persons interned in asylums and 7 deaths. A foodborne illness was suspected, and among these it was originally believed to be a case of "cursed bread".
A majority of academic sources accept ergot poisoning as the cause of the epidemic, while a few theorize other causes such as poisoning by mercury, mycotoxins, or nitrogen trichloride.
Background
During the Vichy government, the supply of grains from field to mill to bakery is directed by the government's grain control board.. Essentially, this created a government monopoly on the sale of flour, allowing the government a measure of control over wartime supply shortages. This also meant that flour would be purchased directly from ONIC, and delivered to the baker for a set price, without the baker being able to have any control on quality. Following the end of the second world war, this system is relaxed, allowing for bakers to have some choice over their flour supply. The ONIC would retain its monopoly on inter-departemental exportation and importation. This system meant that millers in departements with more supply than demand could sell the excess to ONIC. In practice, this meant that the higher-quality flour would be delivered to local bakers, and lower quality flour would be exported to other departments. As such, departements with net flour deficit, like the Gard departement in which is located Pont-Saint-Esprit, would be supplied with lower quality flour from other departements through the intermediary of ONIC, with the bakers having virtually no choice in the decision of the provenance or quality of their flour.Previous sanitary events
In the weeks preceding the outbreak, a number of villages near Pont-Saint-Esprit reported outbreaks of food poisoning via bread. These outbreaks are all linked to bakeries that make their bread with most if not all of their flour supplied by the mill of Maurice Maillet, in Saint-Martin-la-Riviere. The symptoms reported are milder than those reported in Pont-Saint-Esprit.At Issirac, at least 20 people report cutaneous eruptions, diarrhea, vomiting and headaches. Similar symptoms are reported in Laval-Saint-Roman. Multiple families are reported sick in Goudargues and Lamotte-du-Rhone.
In Connaux, the town’s baker receives reports from his clients that they believe his bread is causing violent diarrhea. He reports that his family, as well as himself, are all suffering from the same afflictions. The baker is quick to blame his flour, which he describes as “bad, forming a sticky dough with acid fermentation” and which makes gray and sticky bread.
In Saint-Genies-de-Comolas, the town’s mayor is alerted by one of the town’s two bakers that he received flour that was gray and full of worms. The mayor banned making bread with that flour, and referred the situation to the regions prefect, as well as to the driver that delivered the flour.
The delivery driver, Jean Bousquet, would expedite to the prefect a copy of a remark made to his employer, the miller’s union in Nimes, on 9 August. In which, he writes that “almost every baker of Centre de Bagnols/Cèze has complained of the quality of the flour provided by Mr. Maillet”. Following the incident at Connaux, Bousquet would request immediate written instructions from his employer regarding the situation. On the 13th of August, he requested that samples were to be taken to determine if the flour was contaminated. During this period, 42 bakers would complain of the flour delivered by Bousquet.
Mass poisoning
On the 16th of August 1951, the local offices of the town's two doctors were filled with patients reporting similar food poisoning symptoms; nausea, vomiting, cold chills, heat waves. These symptoms would eventually worsen, with added hallucinatory crises and convulsions. The situation in the town deteriorates in the following days. On the night of the 24th, a man believes himself to be an airplane and dies by jumping from a second-storey window and across town, an 11-year old boy strangles his mother. One of the town's two doctors would name the night nuit d'apocalypse; apocalyptic night.Epidemiological investigation
Doctors Vieu and Gabbai investigated the epidemiology of the disease. On the 19th, they came to the conclusion that bread was to blame; all patients interrogated had purchased their bread at the Briand bakery in Pont-Saint-Esprit. A family from a neighboring village who had 4 out of 9 members fall ill showed that all members who ate bread from the Briand bakery fell ill, while none of the others who ate bread from another bakery did. Another family shared a loaf of Briand’s bread amongst 5 of the 7 members, the others preferring biscottes, with only the 5 falling ill.On the morning of the 20th, the health service, the prefecture, the prosecutor of the Republic and the police were notified. Roch Briand is interrogated, and finds himself surprised that the sickness that has befallen the town is blamed on his bread.
Criminal investigation
The police investigation would eventually center on the second of three batches of bread made at Briand’s bakery on the day of 16 August. The flour composition of each batch varied, as having run out of flour during the preparation of the second batch, Briand had borrowed flour from two other local bakers, Jaussent and Fallavet. Briand’s assistant would indicate that when he picked up flour from Jaussent, the baker was out ill, and took the flour from his assistant instead.Both Briand and his assistant would agree that the first batch was constituted of the previous day’s flour mixed with flour borrowed from Jaussent. They disagree on the second and third batch, while Briand states that the 2nd was made with Jaussent’s flour and the 3rd made with Fallavet’s flour, the assistant stated that both latter batches were made with a mix of the two.
The investigation would lead police to interrogate many of the town’s residents, who would give inconsistent ratings on Briand’s tainted batch. Some reported that the taste was perfectly normal, while others reported chemical smells, some reported that the bread looked normal, while others stated that its appearance was grayish.
Ergot poisoning
Shortly after the incident, in September 1951, Dr. Gabbai joined by a few collegues published a paper in the British Medical Journal declaring that "the outbreak of poisoning" was produced by ergot fungus. The victims appeared to have one common connection. They had eaten bread from the bakery of Roch Briand who was subsequently blamed for using flour made from contaminated rye. Additionally, animals who had eaten the bread were found to have also perished. According to reports at the time, the flour had been contaminated by a fungus known as Claviceps Purpurea which produces alkaloids similar to the hallucinogenic drug lysergic acid diethylamide.Other theories
Later investigations suggested mercury poisoning due to the use of Panogen or other fungicides used to treat grains and seeds.In 1982, a French researcher suggested Aspergillus fumigatus, a toxic fungus produced in grain silos, as a potential culprit.
Historian Steven Kaplan’s 2008 book, Le Pain Maudit argues that the poisoning might have been caused by nitrogen trichloride used to artificially bleach flour.