“It [buckwheat erythema] is seen only on white skins or the white portions of parti-colored skins, while the blacks, browns and other colors usually escape. Black breeds of hogs (Essex) escape under the same feeding and exposure, as do solid colored horses of the darker shades. Of the different food factors, buckwheat (Polygonum fagopyrum, persicare, etc.), is the most to be feared, and the poison seems to be inherent in all the products (green vegetable, dry seeds, bran and straw) and is not destroyed by cooking. Buckwheat cakes sometime produce erythema in man. This excludes the idea of the transfer of a living cryptogam [a plant that reproduces by spores] to the skin, though not the theory of the pathogenic products of the fungi. The invoking of bee stings and the bites of insects, which are strongly attracted to the buckwheat, is untenable because the affection occurs from the dried seeds, bran and straw, and has been known to break out weeks after the buckwheat was withdrawn from the ration.”