Historical Occurrence
The first mentioned intoxication goes back to ancient India and also Hippocrates mentions a neurological disorder 46 B.C. in Greece caused by Lathyrus seed. Lathyrism was occurring on a regular basis.
During the Spanish War of Independence against Napoleon, grasspea served as a famine food. This was the subject of one of Francisco de Goya's famous aquatint prints titled Gracias a la Almorta ("Thanks to the Grasspea"), depicting poor people surviving on a porridge made from grasspea flour, one of them lying on the floor, already crippled by it.
In the film Ashes by Andrzej Wajda based on the novel Popioly translated as Lost army by Stefan Żeromski spanning the period 1798–1812, a horse is poisoned by grain from a Spanish village. The footage of the horse losing control of its hind legs suggests that it was fed with Almortas.
Read more about this topic: Lathyrism
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