Ergot or Witches you decide.
If you knew how dangerous food poisoning could be to a society, would you risk eating your week-old leftovers? During the Salem Witch trials in 1692 there was over 200 people accused and 20 people killed after being convicted of witchcraft by the court of Salem. The village of Salem was run under a theocracy in which you basically were told how to act and what to believe. So the puritans believed that, witches existed and they were capable of causing physical harm to others and could control natural forces. It was perfectly believable to accuse someone of witchcraft; it was even common when a doctor didn’t understand or know what was wrong with his or her patient that they would give them a diagnosis of simply being “be-witched”. Many years later people from all walks of life are asking the question, “what was the cause of the Salem witch Trials?” Poisoning from ergot is most likely the main cause of the Salem Witch Trials in 1692. Food poisoning from ergot has been known to cause many of the symptoms reported during the trials; this also explains why the symptoms came and then ended so abruptly. During this time period, weather conditions and geography fit perfectly with the environment needed for an outbreak of ergot to arise, not to mention all of the outbreaks that occurred around the world that are very similar to this case.
Food poisoning from ergot has been known to cause many of the symptoms reported during the Salem Witch Trails; it also enforces the theory as to why the symptoms came and went so abruptly. Some of these reported symptoms by residents of the town are, “it produces hallucinatory, LSD-like effects in the afflicted and can cause victims to suffer from vertigo, crawling sensations on the skin, extremity tingling, headaches, hallucinations, and seizure-like muscle contractions.” (Saxon). All of these symptoms were reported but these unusual symptoms made the towns people believe that the victims were “be-witched” and, like I said before when a doctor didn’t understand or know what was wrong with his or her patient that they would give them a simple diagnosis of being “be-witched”. During these times safety precautions applied during the planting and harvesting was practically nothing, so a risk of a food borne illness was extremely high. “The rye crop consumed in the winter of 1691-1692 when the first unusual symptoms began to be reported it could easily have been contaminated by large quantities of ergot.” (The Witches Curse). When these symptoms began to appear, the citizens of Salem were at a loss for what the reason is so they began to act irrationally. Throughout the year and the Salem Witch Trials the village ate through their supply of rye and outbreaks of unimaginable symptoms continued to happen. Once the contaminated supply of rye from the year before was finished, things began to change almost overnight and symptoms began to fade away like nothing had ever happened. This is because ergot poisoning is a fungus and you can contract it by consuming grains that are contaminated with ergot but once you stop ingesting the contaminated grains the symptoms go away very rapidly. (Wong). This would explain the almost instant arrival and departure of these medical symptoms the villagers reported; which also falls in the perfect time frame of the trials themselves.
Weather conditions and geography, almost fit perfectly in relationship to how and where ergot is commonly found and consumed. In Massachusetts rye was the most prevalent grain grown in the area at the time, and damp climate and long storage period could have caused an infestation of ergot to get into the grain. Ergot needs very specific condition to grow and this is the perfect place for it. Ergot thrives in damp, rainy springs and summers. “The winter of 1961 was said to have been a wet winter that lasted through spring and summer but the summer of 1692, however, was dry which could explain the abrupt end of the “bewitchments.” (Caporael). It is also reported that certain people had a lot more exposure to rye at the time and that these people were mainly the ones that were having most if not all of the symptoms that go along with ergotism. “Nearly all of the ‘be-witched’ lived in the western section of Salem village, a region that was very swampy meadows that would have been prime breeding ground for this fungus.” (The Witches Curse). The western side of town was also known for having many farms that many grew grains like rye. The timing was perfect for an ergot contamination to have happened in 1691 in Salem. The people that showed the earliest signs of these symptoms all lived on the western part of town which was close proximity to farms that grew rye and had great weather conditions for ergot to thrive.
There have been many reported and accurate accounts of outbreaks of ergot poisoning that have happened around the world, and not surprisingly they all sound very similar to the symptoms and problems that occurred in Salem. In 1039, an outbreak of ergotism occurred in France. During this outbreak, a hospital was built in order to care solely for the victims of ergotism, by Gaston de la Valloire. Symptoms were reported to be almost identical to the symptoms in Salem in 1691. “Even in the 20th. Century, there have been occasions where outbreaks of ergotism, due to consumption of contaminated Rye. Ergotism occurred in 1926-1927 in Russia, with 10,000 reported cases, in England and again in 1927, with 200 cases, among central European Jewish immigrants and the last known example occurred on August 12, 1951.” (Wong). Given that these outbreaks aren’t all of the recorded outbreaks in history and that the symptoms described are almost identical to those in Salem, it is very likely that Salem experienced the same thing. It is also not all that uncommon for an outbreak to occur, even today we take many precautions while planting and harvesting grains to prevent another outbreak from occurring.
You probably don’t want to try to count all of the theories as to why the Salem Witch Trails occurred, most of which hold no ground but others deserve to be acknowledged. Economic reasons as to why the Salem Witch Trials occurs was continuously coming up as I researched the causes of this event. Many can agree that the causes of the Salem Witch Trials were mainly due to the fact that there was a “little ice age” the coldest period of this “little ice age” was from 1680 to 1730. “This is believed to have caused economic deterioration, food shortages, and a slowdown of population growth that led people to fear that witches were the cause of these events, in the United States and Europe there were many communities with this fear and wide spread hysteria.” (Spanos). It is important to note that this theory of a “little ice age” causing an economic down tern, mass food shortages, and a slowdown of population growth falls perfectly in line with the causes of a fungus poisoning. The difference is that ergotism came before the economic down term and slow down of population growth. As soon as The Salem Witch Trials were under way, many people stopped working and contributing to the community causing an economic down term. A slowdown of population is an effect of putting so much stress and damage into the community during the trials that there were repercussions after the trials were over. Finally, the mass food shortage came in the winter and spring of 1691 causing many crops to die, forcing the population to survive off of only a few grains. Also, in the winter of 1691 it was a very wet winter and spring where ergot grows best, and in the summer of 1692 it was reported to have been very hot and dry causing the ergot fungus to die. An economic reason to the trails is good but it is no comparison to the sheer amount of evidence that supports the theory of ergot poisoning.
The society we live in today isn’t a theocracy based society anymore and we no longer agree on the fact that witches had something to do with this case. This is a very realistic approach to what might be the actual cause of the Salem Witch Trials. The weather and geography fit perfectly to what ergot needs to thrive. The symptoms that the “be-witched” experienced match almost to the “T”, the symptoms you would experience if you were exposed to ergot today. It also explains why the whole things came and went so quickly. It would also explain why certain people in the village experienced side effects while others didn’t base on where they were lived compared to where the rye farms where or to how much contaminated rye they were consuming. There are plenty of theories out there as to why this event occurred but this is one that holds the best ground based off of logic and fact. Ergotism, was most likely the cause of the Salem Witch Trails in 1691. More importantly, we should be studying our past with a logical approach to accurately identify the what, where, when, and why; these events occurred in order to prevent them from occurring again. If history repeats itself then the better we understand history, the better we can understand and react to our future.
Work Cited:
Spanos, Nicholas P. “Ergotism and the Salem Witch Panic a Critical Analysis and an Alternative Conceptualization .” Web4Lib: Web Systems in Libraries Mailing List, web4lib.org/archive/2008-January.txt.
https://access.library.oregonstate.edu/CEO/illiad.dll?Action=10&Form=75&Value=1014985
“The Witches Curse.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, 4 June 2014, www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/witches-curse-clues-evidence/1501/.
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