Ep. 26 A Town Gone Mad

In August 1951, the town of Pont-Saint-Esprit, France was overtaken by a wave of hallucinations, delirium, and death. This episode walks through the outbreak, the investigation, and the theories that still compete to explain it. Sources listed below. 1. Gabbai, Lisbonne & Pourquier, "Ergot Poisoning at Pont St. Esprit," British Medical Journal, 15 Sept 1951, 2(4732):650-651. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC20699532. Steven L. Kaplan, Le Pain Maudit: Retour sur la France des années oubliées, 1945-1958 (Fayard, 2008). 3. Hank P. Albarelli Jr., A Terrible Mistake (2009). 4. Mike Thomson, "Pont-Saint-Esprit poisoning: Did the CIA spread LSD?", BBC News, 23 Aug 2010. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-10996838 5. Christophe Josset, "Did the CIA poison a French town with LSD?", France 24, 11 Mar 2010. 6. Mental Floss, "When the French Village of Pont-Saint-Esprit Went Temporarily Mad," 2018. 7. John G. Fuller, The Day of St. Anthony's Fire (1968). 8. Wikipedia, "1951 Pont-Saint-Esprit mass poisoning."