Pont-Saint-Esprit is an idyllic small village in the south of France, situated along the Rhône river and famous for its medieval bridge for which the town is named.
Though it is the birthplace of Jackie Kennedy’s great-grandfather, Pont-Saint-Esprit is an otherwise unknown town in the famous country. Except, that is, for an incident in 1951 that left seven people dead, 50 people in asylums, and another 200 or so ill.
August 16, 1951, began like any other in the town, with people going about their day; buying bread, going to work or school, and doing chores. But on this day, the villagers began experiencing strange symptoms.
By mid-morning, the small town’s two doctors’ offices were filled with patients complaining of food poisoning, with nausea and vomiting. They were also experiencing cold chills and hot flashes. Many were also hallucinating and having convulsions. One young man came in swinging his arms as if he were swatting away a swarm of bees, Haaretz reported in 2019. Another was mumbling incoherently, believing snakes were slithering all around his body. By the end of the day, 75 people had been treated for hallucinations, with some 22 being cared for in a barn because there wasn’t enough space in the local hospital.
The hallucinations continued for days, including a woman who believed her children had been ground up and made into sausages and a husband and wife who chased each other through the streets with knives.
On August 24, one resident jumped to his death from a second-story window, reportedly believing he was an airplane. That same night, an 11-year-old boy attempted to strangle his own mother.
Even animals were affected, with reports of a dog that bit on rocks until it chipped its teeth and ducks that marched through town like penguins.
Not everyone experienced terrifying hallucinations. Some reported hearing “heavenly choruses” and seeing “brilliant colors,” The New York Times reported. The head of the local farmers’ co-op was also able to write hundreds of pages of poetry.
“I have seen healthy men and women suddenly become terrorized, ripping their bed sheets, hiding themselves beneath their blankets to escape hallucinations,” the town mayor, Albert Hébrard, reportedly said.
Physicians were called in from other towns, and were likewise astounded by what they were seeing.
“My father always said that it was as though the apocalypse suddenly struck the town,” said Dr. Bernard Gabbai, the town doctor’s youngest child, who himself became a doctor. “It left an impression that stayed with him his whole life.”
In the thick of it all, two doctors began investigating the disease that had taken hold of the small town. By August 19, they had already concluded that bread purchased from Roch Briand’s bakery had caused the incident. The connection to Briand was determined when a family from a nearby village ate bread from Briand’s and another bakery – everyone who ate Briand’s bread became sick, while those who ate bread from the other bakery were fine.
On August 20, health services and authorities were notified of the situation in Pont-Saint-Esprit, with police focusing on bread purchased at Briand’s on August 16.
Briand made three batches of bread on the 16. The first batch was made up of the previous day’s flour and flour purchased from another local baker. Briand and his assistant weren’t sure what the flour mixture was for their second and third batches of bread that day, however. Briand believed the second batch of bread was made with the other local baker’s flour, and the third batch was made from flour purchased from a third baker. His assistant, however, believed the second and third batches were a mixture of both flours.
People in town gave different descriptions of the bread they purchased from Briand’s bakery. Some said it tasted fine, while others said it smelled of chemicals, such as gasoline or bleach. And while some people said the bread looked like it usually did, others said it looked a little gray.
A formal investigation was opened on August 23 and led to Maurice Maillet’s mill in Saint-Martin-la-Rivière, which was one of the two flour suppliers in the region and which had numerous past complaints about quality. During his hours-long interrogation, Maillet denied mixing rye into his flour. Rye is highly susceptible to ergot poisoning, which is what causes people to get sick and hallucinate after eating bread. Maillet claimed his product was mixed with bean flour.
Maillet admitted, however, that he had made a deal with a baker who had brought in bags filled with leftover grain from the end of the season. These bags likely contained lots of rye, but also weevils, mites, and dust. Even though Maillet knew the grain was low quality, he agreed to exchange it for a lower quantity of flour made from better grain. Thinking he could mix the lower-quality grain with better grain, Maillet milled the flour and sent it on.
On August 31, 1951, police announced that Maillet and Guy Bruère, who had brought him the tainted grain, would be arrested for involuntary manslaughter. Others were also arrested on lesser charges, including one of Maillet’s employees who was released on bail and the owners of the bakery where Bruère worked.
The charges against Maillet and Bruère were apparently dropped, The New York Times reported in 2008, writing that the “government did its best to smooth over the incident and after many inquiries and court cases the affair was finally dropped in 1978.”
Ergot poisoning was also responsible for the strange behavior that led to accusations of witchcraft and the Salem Witch Trials. But, because this was 1951 France and not 1692 Massachusetts, science was used to explain the issues, with an eventual focus on safer transportation for food products instead of hanging people for allegedly being witches.