Convulsions, diarrhea, vomiting, skin discoloration, hallucinations, burning and cold sensations, coma, and death are all symptoms of convulsive ergot poisoning (Coll). Ergot poisoning was said to be the cause of the bewitched behavior of the afflicted girls during the Salem witch trials; however, convulsive ergotism only occurs in places lacking vitamin A, the symptoms of ergot were not present in the girls, and the girls were most likely faking all of the symptoms that they did have.
Gangrenous ergotism is the type of ergot poisoning that is contracted when there is plenty of vitamin A in the environment. Salem was a farming town, meaning there was always a well balanced diet; thus making convulsive ergotism very hard to contract. The convulsions the “afflicted” girls were having would not have occurred with gangernous ergot poisoning because they are not part of the symptoms. By gangrenous being completely absent, it is most likely that ergot played any role in Salem. Also, the first bewitched girls were from very wealthy families who could have easily afforded the vitamin rich foods that would have prevented their convulsions, if they were to have contracted ergot poisoning. Ergot is rare, but when it does appear in people, it tends to show up in younger kids much more frequently. “..fifty six percent in the Finnish epidemic were under ten years old; sixty percent of Scrine’s cases were under fifteen years of age...’ (Spanos and Gottlieb) There were only three girls under the age of fifteen out of the eleven girls during the trials. Lastly, it was more common that when one member contracts convulsive ergotism, the entire household usually contracts it. However, during the trials, no entire house was said to be completely “...
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...l the evidence proves that ergot poisoning did not play a role in the salem witch trials. Instead, it was a bunch of teenage girls pretending to be ill to get people in trouble.
Works Cited
Glazer, G., K. A. Myers, and E. R. Davies. "Ergot poisoning." Postgraduate medical journal 42.491 (1966): 562-568.Google Scholar. Web. 26 Feb 2014.
INTeReSTS, DeClARATION Of. "The history of ergot of rye (Claviceps purpurea) I: from antiquity to 1900." JR Coll Physicians Edinb 39 (2009): 179-84. Google Scholar. Web. 26 Feb 2014.
"RootsWeb: SALEM-WITCH-L [SALEM-WITCH-L] Spanos & Gottlieb on Ergotism in Salem." RootsWeb: SALEM-WITCH-L [SALEM-WITCH-L] Spanos & Gottlieb on Ergotism in Salem. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Feb. 2014.
Spanos, Nicholas P., and Jack Gottlieb. "Ergotism and the Salem village witch trials." (1976) Google Scholar. Web. 26 Feb 2014.
Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft is a concise, 231 page informational text by Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum. Published in 1974, it explores the economic and social conditions present in the Salem village during the 1600s that led to the hysteria surrounding witchcraft. Multiple graphs and illustrations are present, as well as an average sized font, an abundance of footnotes typically on the left page, and a prominent voice from the authors. The book was written to serve as a more comprehensive informational piece on the Salem witch trials due to the authors finding other pieces written about the same topic to be inaccurate. Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum wanted to create something that utilized
...ty that the poisoning of ergot, or Ergotism, was the reason the hysteria began. When the girls began to exhibit strange behaviors, many people were wrongly accused of witchcraft and died for the wrong reasons. They died because the girls of Salem were wrongly proclaimed as being possessed and accused others of their own faults. All of this just because the girls may have ingested the fungus, ergot.
Sebald, Hans, Ph.D. Witch-Children: from Salem Witch-Hunts to Modern Courtrooms. New York: Prometheus Books, 1995.
“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”, Exodus 22:18. In 1692 , in Salem Massachusetts , the Puritans believed everything in the bible, they also believed in witches and that witches should not be able to live.There were at least 3 causes for the Salem witch trial hysteria. There are: age, gender, and marital status , lying girls, and a divided town.
In 1976 Linnda R. Caporael writes Ergotism:The Satan Loosed in Salem? where she explains that ergotism is the cause of the people acting the certain way. The evidence of ergotism in the Salem Village was the growing conditions and localization. The growing conditions for rye were perfect and rye is known to be a host plant for ergot. The cycle at which rye is harvested and stored for months fits the timing of the Salem Witch Trials. The pattern of residence of the accusers, the accused, and the defenders of the accused living within the Salem Village may have been an area of contamination.2 The result of not understanding ergotism at the time caused the people to start assuming witchcraft for the people with convulsions, mental disturbances, and perceptual distortions.3 In 2000 Dr. Alan Woolf being a medical toxicologist writes Witchcraft or Mycotoxin? The Salem Witch Trials in which she states that some people believed the Salem Witch Trials people were affected with egotism like Linnda R.
As one can see, the chaotic Salem Witchcraft Trials of 1692 were caused by superstition, the strict puritan lifestyle, religious beliefs, and hysteria. Puritan Lifestyle was one reason that might have caused the witchcraft hysteria in Salem.... ... middle of paper ... ... He believed strongly in having the witches of Salem executed for their wrong doing (Fradin 26-27).
Year 1692, Hundreds of people, accused with the conviction of witchcraft, stoned to death, or in confinement with no justice trials. “From June through September of 1692, nineteen men and women, all having been convicted of witchcraft, were carted to Gallows Hill, a barren slope near Salem Village, for hanging” (The Salem Witchcraft Trials of 1692) What caused the mass hysteria and disaster of Salem; for, the answer is unknown. Yet, many events and factors had contributed to the accusations, the punishments, and the confessions of the sentenced. Many colonists in Massachusetts were puritans, seeking religious tolerance. Ironically, the Puritan code was strict and disciplined. Dress was dictated to the church and the public were anticipated
Hinds, Maurene J. Witchcraft on Trial: From the Salem Witch Hunts to the Crucible. Library ed. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow, 2009. Print.
The Salem Witch Trials took place in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692. At this time there appeared to be an outbreak of witches. This started when the children of the Goodwin family begin having mysterious fits. The doctors, not knowing what had happened to the children, blamed it on witchcraft. From that point on many people were accused of being a witch and were killed. This occurred for many different reasons; either they were hanged for their crimes, crushed by stones for refusing to stand trial on their cases, or from waiting in the jail for so long before their case came up. As people began to investigate the Salem Witch Trials further they came up with two explanations; either the people of Salem were begin acted through by the devil or
In the early winter months of 1692, in colonial Massachusetts, two young girls began exhibiting strange symptoms that were described to be "beyond the power of Epileptic Fits or natural disease to effect (examiner.com)." Doctors looked them over, but could not come up with any sort of logical explanation for their ailments. Therefore, the girls were accused of taking part in witchcraft. Soon, other young women in the village started showing similar symptoms. This "illness" of sort slowly made its way through the village to many of the residents. Soon, people started coming up with possible theories as to what started all the madness.
In 1692 everyone was sure that the Devil had come to Salem when young girls started screaming, barking like dogs and doing strange dances in the woods. The Salem Witch Trials originated in the home of Salem's reverend Samuel Parris, who had a slave from the Caribbean named Tibuta. Tibuta would tell stories about witchcraft back from her home. In early 1692 several of Salem's teenage girls began gathering in the kitchen with Tibuta. When winter turned to spring many Salem residents were stunned at the acts and behaviors of Tibuta's young followers. It was said that in the woods nearby they danced a black magic dance, and several of the girls would fall on the floor screaming uncontrollably. These behaviors soon began to spread across Salem. This soon led to ministers from nearby communities coming to Salem to lend their advice on the matter. Many believed that the girls were bewitched. It is believed that the young girls accusations began the Salem witch trials, and they would gather at reverend Parris's house to play fortune-telling games with magic and with Tibuta. One of the games was for them to crack a raw egg into a glass of water and see what shape it made in the glass.
The Salem Witch Trials took place in the summer and into the fall of the year 1692, and during this dark time of American history, over 200 people had been accused of witchcraft and put in jail. Twenty of these accused were executed; nineteen of them were found guilty and were put to death by hanging. One refused to plead guilty, so the villagers tortured him by pressing him with large stones until he died. The Salem Witch Trials was an infamous, scary time period in American history that exhibited the amount of fear people had of the devil and the supernatural; the people of this time period accused, arrested, and executed many innocent people because of this fear, and there are several theories as to why the trials happened (Brooks).
During the early winter of 1692 two young girls became inexplicably ill and started having fits of convulsion, screaming, and hallucinations. Unable to find any medical reason for their condition the village doctor declared that there must be supernatural forces of witchcraft at work. This began an outbreak of hysteria that would result in the arrest of over one hundred-fifty people and execution of twenty women and men. The madness continued for over four months.
While researching texts written about the Salem Witch Trials, I found a few authors who published articles and books about the Salem Witch Trials. These authors often showed that the most likely cause of the fits coming from the victims was produced by ergot of rye. However, I could not find much discussion about another important source of the fits’ cause: witchcraft. My goal in this paper is to produce a convincing argument that the victims during the Salem Witch Trials that experienced strange behaviors came from ergot of rye rather than witchcraft. To achieve this goal, I have organized my paper into four main sections.
Spasm,unconsciousness, and even death were symptoms of some of the greatest known events in history. Ergot poisoning, also known as ergotism, is caused by the fungus Claviceps Purpurea, which events rye, wheat and other cereal grasses (The Witches Curse 1). Ergot contains an alkaloid lysergic acid, from which the hallucinogenic drug LSD is obtained (Star-News 3). For years people have been trying to prove that ergotism has been the cause of the happenings. Around the world ergotism has been causing mass hysteria in small towns and making the fear of ergot stronger and more believable. Throughout history there have been frequent times where ergot was not thought to be the leading cause, but perhaps it was.