The research undertaken clarifies many aspects of the disease called Saint Anthony's Fire. At the same time though, it also raises issues that were not addressed by a historiography rooted in interpretative criteria from the eighteenth and nineteenth century.

With regard to the lexical question, which is fundamentally important as the lexicon reflects the way in which the disease was perceived, although the universally widespread affirmation that Saint Anthony's Fire is a synonym for ignis sacer corresponding to ergotism is not totally wrong, a careful examination of past sources reveals that it is frequently inaccurate. To start with, I have not found any accounts of epidemics described as Saint Anthony's Fire in medieval sources. When the term appears in medical, hagiographical, legal or literary texts, it refers almost exclusively to individual cases of gangrene of varying aetiology such as the form stemming from frostbite or, more commonly, an ‘infection’ resulting from a wound (I use the term infection in its modern sense, well aware that a similar concept did not exist at the time). We can certainly imagine that the term was also employed to describe gangrene developing from ergotism, but it is impossible to make this distinction as the disease was unknown at the time.

The connection between ergotism and Saint Anthony's Fire was only established in the eighteenth century after the latter had been equated to ignis sacer, a term widely used from the eleventh century onwards to describe epidemics of the burning disease. Ergot poisoning can be recognised in these, although a degree of caution needs to be adopted. As we have seen, however, besides the fact that ignis sacer sometimes simply referred to gangrene of any aetiology, the two terms were not used as synonyms in all sources. Indeed, a difference emerges between medical and non-medical texts, as the former sources maintained the original meaning of ignis sacer first used in antiquity and late antiquity, namely a skin complaint. This pustular disease is not comparable to gangrene or ergotism but rather erysipelas. However, as the latter term was attributed with multiple meanings from antiquity onwards, care needs to be taken when drawing comparisons with the present-day disease.