How They Started:
- The mass hysteria all started when two young girls, Abigal Williams and Elizabeth Parris, daughter of Reverend Samuel Parris, began demonstrating odd behavior such as halluctionations, strange convulsions, trances, and mumbling.
- The whole town was concerned for the girls and they despretely looked for a possible explanation for this madness. Once a town doctor checked on the girls, he came to the conclusion that the girls were bewitched.
- The town was shocked and they told the girls to tell them who was this witch that had hurt them. The girls pointed at three women, Tituba, a slave who later confessed to being a witch, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osburn.
- Thus the start of the hysteria and the mystifying case that came to be known as the Salem Witch Trails.
But how did these strange events begin? Was it just a cruel game that these girls took place in to seek attention from the community after being tired of living their strict Puritan lives that went farther than they expected? Was it a major finger pointing hysteria that was really a fight between the rich and poor citizens of Salem? Or was it a single fungus that poisoned the entire village, causing the villagers to fall under the symptoms of Ergotism?
Evidence
Ergot Poisoning
Ergot poisoning takes place as a fungi in cereal grasses ,such as the rye and wheat grown in Salem, when conditions are warm and damp in the summer and spring just as they were in Salem in 1691.
Once the plant is infested, its head releases yellow mucus that can spread rapidily.
When the fungi invades the kernals of the grain in the plant, causing them to change into a purplish-blackish color. This is called sclerotia and it can be easily confused with discolored rye and therefore would probably be harvested despite the potent chemicals inside.
Also, grain was one of the main food sources that the village of Salem depended on to eat and survive on. So if ergot poisoning was in fact a leading cause of the Salem Witch Trails, it would have affected most people in the town. But how would it lead to the deaths of innocent people?
Consuming ergot contaminated food, leads to a convulsion disorder.
This is where the symptoms of the poisoning are seen.
The Symptoms
Violent muscle spasms:
These are exactly what the two girls were experiencing when the Salem Witch Trails began.
Vomiting and crawling of the skin
This was evident as the girls described their bodies feeling like they were stuck with pins.
Hallunctionations and Delusions:
These symptoms were the most seen between the girls. Witnesses describe the girls of mumbling, screaming, putting their bodies in irregular positions, and crawling under furniture. Other claimed witches were also under these same conditions which might have gave the villagers a reason to claim that they were a witch.
A typically Salem villager could be easily plagued by this fungus, because of the normality of rye's usage in Salem Village. With these symptoms that come with ergot poisoning, villagers could be accused as being a witch, when in fact they were just suffering conditions like mumbling, which just happened to be a characterisitic of a witch.
If so why weren't the girls themselves accused as being a witch? The answer is that Puritans looked at children as an innocent being who could do no wrong. But as the mass hysteria went along, even that went out the window, when a 4 year old was accused of being a witch.
also from this fungi, comes the possible solution for why most people in Salem Village were accused of being a witch opposed to only a couple in Salem Town, other than the solution of the economy and social ladder of Salem.
Since Salem Village were the ones to produce the crops and food to Salem town, they were the only ones hadliling the produce in Salem. This is important because if the ergot poisoning were to affect the villagers and make them look like they were a witch, it would be mostly citizens of Salem Village to be accused of these acts of the Devil and not those of Salem Town.
The villagers used rye plentous in their town and probably very familar with the the ergot on the plant. However, they most likely had no idea that this blackish seed was harmful to them and what the symptoms of consuming this fungi was. With this in mind, the villagers looked at the fungi as part of the crop and indeed ate it as if it was the crop as well, resulting in the poisoning.
This also shows how the sudden stop of the Witch Trails took place.
Since ergot thrives in warm damp places, exactly like Salem in 1692, the fungi would be in full swing until something caused it to be killed or it could no longer survive.
After the Witch trails ended, the weather in Salem, changed conditions that would have delinquished the harmful fungus.
This would stop the conditions and symptoms throughout the town, and therefore most likely stop the accusations along with the sickness in the town of Salem.
Example
If in fact the Witch Trails were caused by the ergot poisoning, why haven't their been any other cases of this? But however, there has been a very similar outbreak of this fungus and the incident in Point-Saint Espirit has been scientifically proven to be caused by ergot poisoning.
In 1951, in the town of Point-Saint Espirit, a large breakout of ergot poisoning hit. More than 250 people were involved in this fungi and its symptoms. 7 people died from ergot poisoning and it was later found that this massive outbreak all started in the town's bakery, where bread was made that contained the harmful fungi.
The symptoms of this poisoning correlate to the ones of the Salem Witch trail despite the difference of nearly 260 years and the location of the two sites, both on seperate continents. In Point-Saint Espirit, the symptoms were psychotic episodes and convulsions along with many physical symptoms from vomiting to muscle spasms.
The similarities of these two topics are to identical to overshadow. Every symptom is nearly the same symptom in both cases. And although these incidents happened so far away from each other in time and in location, they demonstrate the same variables, problems, and mysteries.
With one happening more recent than the other, we have been able to get more information and data on something that might have been left as unsolved due to lack of knowledge. But now, we can make the connection between these two cases and see that ergot poisoning could have very well caused both of these events to take place. We can conclude this from the answers we uncovered from the Point-Saint Espirit incident and use it to prove that ergot poisoning played a major role in contributing to the Salem Witch Trails.
Conclusion:
Despite the constant research on the Salem Witch Trails, We may never know the true cause of the Trails. However, we continue to form possible thoeries on how the trails got so out of hand. Looking for answers, we only find more questions that we can't confirm or valadate. The full story of what happened in Salem may never be discovered, and we will continue to ponder. Was it due to the economic differences from Salem Town and Salem Village? Was it all a game to escape the boring Puritan childhood that was fueled by mass hysteria of the town members? Is there a scientific explanation for this incident like ergot poisoning just as there was in Point-Saint Espirit in 1951? Until we have the knowledge to conclude what exactly happened in Salem in 1692, a mysetrious ambiance will always loom over the town of Salem and the graves of those who died as a result of the Salem Witch Trials.
The Salem Witch Trails
Background Information:
Despite the constant research, we may never know what truly caused the Salem W
Trenton Tinsley
Ergot Poisoning?