Salem Witch Trials Essay

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The Origins and Science Behind The Salem Witch Trials The Salem Witch Trials of 1629 were complex, deep, and twisted in nature. However, they can be rooted down to the specific scientific cause that is ergot, and were driven by purely inequitable allegations. The trials highlight utterly corrupt decisions and a crooked time period in American History.
The Salem Witch Trials themselves, originated when a few teenage girls “were subject to bodily fits,” and had other symptoms “characterized by vomiting, delusions, [and] hallucinations,” (The Witches Curse: Clues and Evidence; The Salem Witch Trials, U.S History in Context). Not only were there physical effects on the impacted young women, but there were also a number of behavioral changes as …show more content…

She looked closely at the climate during the trials, describing it as “warm, damp and rainy,” (Forensics in History: The Salem Witch Trials). Linda also looked at the recorded symptoms that the girls were facing, and compared them to the effects of the drug lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) which is a derivative of ergot, a fungus affecting rye grain (Forensics in History: The Salem Witch Trials). Rye bread was especially popular in Salem at the time of the trials, and the weather in Salem was eerily suitable for the fungus ergot to grow on the rye grain. Caporael later concluded that the girls were suffering from the “hallucinogenic effects of [LSD],” and that they were not being possessed by Satan or any higher power; This explanation also helped clear up why “other young people exhibited the same unconventional symptoms,” and why the “plague” was widespread across …show more content…

The use of spectral evidence is currently illegal in court, in part because of the Salem Witch Trials and how a number of lives were wrongly lost based on flimsy, unverifiable evidence, or lack thereof. Although spectral evidence was used throughout the entire trails, it was challenged by Cotton Mather. He argued that it’s “dubious value,” was not suitable for the courtroom but nobody decided to listen to his thoughts until it was too late (Salem Witch Trials,

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