Misslizard wrote:
Quick! Burn all the witches! Witchery is afoot in the village.
I am glad you mentioned witches...Quote:
In January 1692, 9-year-old Elizabeth (Betty) Parris and 11-year-old Abigail Williams (the daughter and niece of Samuel Parris, minister of Salem Village) began having fits, including violent contortions and uncontrollable outbursts of screaming. After a local doctor, William Griggs, diagnosed bewitchment, other young girls in the community began to exhibit similar symptoms, including Ann Putnam Jr., Mercy Lewis, Elizabeth Hubbard, Mary Walcott and Mary Warren. In late February, arrest warrants were issued for the Parris’ Caribbean slave, Tituba, along with two other women–the homeless beggar Sarah Good and the poor, elderly Sarah Osborn–whom the girls accused of bewitching them.
And from the same article...Quote:
In an effort to explain by scientific means the strange afflictions suffered by those "bewitched" Salem residents in 1692, a study published in Science magazine in 1976 cited the fungus ergot (found in rye, wheat, and other cereals), which toxicologists say can cause symptoms such as delusions, vomiting and muscle spasms.
So it would seem that another likely explanation may be a bio-chemical one (e.g., hallucinogenic fungus spores) than a purely psychological one.
Source: This Article on "Salem Witch Trials"
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