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Why not ergot and the Salem witch trials?

A Q&A with Margo Burns, associate editor and project manager of Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt and expert featured on the Who Do You Think You Are? TV series.

WitchesMassBay: What is the premise behind the idea that ergot caused the Salem witch hunts?

Margo Burns: The initial proposition of this idea came from an observation that the symptoms of the accusing girls in Salem Village appeared to resemble the physical and hallucinogenic symptoms of convulsive ergotism. Ergot is a toxic fungus that can grow on rye grain used to make bread in the 17th century, and it has a chemical similarity to LSD, a known hallucinogen. The connection does not explain why the adults in the community—parents, clergy, judges—interpreted such reported symptoms as being caused by bewitchment.

WitchesMassBay: Some notable people, including accused witch John Proctor, believed the core group of afflicted accusers were lying and pretending their illnesses. In 1692, would people have had an understanding that ergot (or contaminated food) caused hallucinations and physical reactions?

Margo Burns: Doctors and “chirurgeons” were often called for help when someone fell ill mysteriously, and ministers were often asked to come pray for the patients to recover with the help of God. A popular witch-finding guide of the period by Richard Bernard gives a list of examples of how doctors were able to diagnose what may have appeared to be bewitchment instead of known physical ailments, including one case that was as simple as the patient having worms, and who got better after “voiding” them. Blood-letting, laxatives, emetics, and diuretics were common treatments as a result of their understanding of how the four “humours” worked in the body. Some of their cures were actually right on the money. They knew about the dangers of spoiled food and many other things, which, frankly, were more common then than now.

WitchesMassBay: Today, the debate on ergot continues, with scientists and witch-hunt historians on both sides. Why is this such a popular theory?

Margo Burns: It is not technically a theory, but a hypothesis, a guess. It would be a theory if there were solid evidence to support it, but it is circumstantial at best. Both historians and medical professionals have found that the evidence offered contains cherry-picked data and ignores known exculpatory evidence. There doesn’t seem to be a debate about that, even though it is often portrayed as such in the popular media, because who doesn’t like experts disagreeing? Except that they don’t. If there’s debate, it is more like debating whether the moon landing was real or not: There will always be someone who believes it was faked, no matter what is presented to them as evidence. Also, many people who hold this explanation as valid often do so because it positions the people of the 17th century as ignorant and superstitious while we in the 21st century are superior in our scientific understanding. Single-bullet solutions for complicated events are also reassuring, especially if it feels like a secret has been revealed, and we’re in on it.

Ergot as the toxic culprit behind the accusers’ symptoms was not necessarily what engaged people about this idea in the mid-1970s when first posited: It was that ergot was chemically and symptomatically similar to LSD.

WitchesMassBay: Any other theories you would like to debunk?

Margo Burns: It is not really about debunking as it is understanding that every critical approach to historical material is actually a filter through which the facts are perceived—some coming into focus and others blurring into the background, depending on the person’s interests and world-view, often with some creative embellishment to complete a popular trope of the time period.

Charles Wentworth Upham, an antiquarian from Salem writing during the mid-18th century, portrayed Tituba, known to be a slave from Barbados, as a Civil War-era stereotype of a voodoo-practicing Black African Mammy from the South, even though Tituba was consistently described in the primary sources as being an Indian. From this, he fabricated the story that the accusing girls had been learning magic from her and went dancing in the woods—none of which is in any of the primary sources—to explain the girls’ behavior. Because this story is vivid and shocking, it comes across as plausible and is generally accepted as true, even now and even though it is not supported by any primary sources.

Arthur Miller repeated the story about the girls dancing in the woods in his play, The Crucible, in the 1950s. Miller was swept up personally in Senator McCarthy’s anti-Communist activities, and the story of public trials based on false accusations condemning innocent people in Salem resonated for him. The Crucible is an extremely popular play, and his craftsmanship so superb that audiences start believing that the story and characters are based more closely on the real events and people than they are. His use of names of real people for his characters further blurs the line. The play is so compelling, in fact, that over the years in discussing the origins of his play, Miller himself began to believe that some of the fictive things he wrote were in the primary sources he had read, even though he hadn’t.

Margo Burns was project manager for Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt, the most complete compendium of the trial documents.

Margo recorded two lectures on ergot—and both of them are different:

Tainted Rye May Have Been the Real Culprit of the Salem Witch Trials

The eerie turn of events may have roots in agriculture.

The Salem Witch Trials have confounded historians for centuries. Experts have debated what caused this dark chapter in seventeenth century history that saw 20 people executed after they were accused of bewitching girls in Salem, Massachusetts.

Some think a nearby battle in the Native American Wars may have contributed to the hysteria that consumed the town. Others believe the bewitched girls were simply acting up out of a sense of teenage rebellion. But another theory is that these events may have been kicked off by an agriculture-related cause: bread that contained a hallucinogenic fungus called ergot.

The trials began in the spring of 1692 after two girls in Salem were reported hallucinating, throwing fits, making strange sounds and contorting themselves. Similar experiences were recorded among six other girls and a total of 150 people were accused of witchcraft in the subsequent trials. In the 1970s, Linnda Caporael, a graduate student at the University of California at Santa Barbara, came up with the theory that these girls were acting this way because they ingested the fungus ergot. This fungus can grow in rye, wheat and other cereals, and if consumed can cause an affliction called ergotism. Some of the symptoms of ergotism include muscle spasms, psychosis, double visions, nausea and sweating—not unlike what these young girls were supposedly experiencing.

Ergot thrives in warm, damp climates. Caporeal, who is now a professor at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, made her case in a paper that argued there were swampy-like weather conditions in the village’s western region during the year before the witch trials started, which would have let the fungus thrive. She also noted that the first two girls were probably fed grain that grew from that area and that the others lived in the west.

Some academics have agreed with Caporeal, but a number have also disputed her theory. Nicholas Spanos and Jack Gottlieb, a pair of psychologists in Canada, most notably wrote a report that looked to dismantle certain aspects of the ergotism argument . They claimed that this kind of ergotism usually occurs in populations that have a lack of vitamin A in their diet, but because the village was located on the eastern coast, they say the people would have access to fish and other imports that would have prevented deficiency.

They also said that if ergot was in the food supply, the symptoms would have been experienced on a house-by-house basis and not in select individuals. And common symptoms like vomiting, diarrhea and discolored skin did not present themselves in the afflicted people. Spanos and Gottlieb point to witness accounts that said the girls normally until prompted by when an accused individual entered a room. If they had ergotism, they say this behavior wouldn’t have been expressed this way.

Caporael’s theory isn’t the only agriculture-related one that has been considered by academics. Suzy Witten, the author of The Afflicted Girls, argues that the victims could have been poisoned with jimson weed. The plant, which is part of the nightshade family, can cause hallucinations .

While there are many theories, the mystery persists around what could have caused the Salem Witch Trials. We may never know why they happened, but we can take some comfort in knowing these events—which inspired some pretty scary movies—weren’t caused by actual witches. (At least I hope so.)

Did mycotoxins cause the Salem witch trials?

It’s funny how a bit of drama from over 300 years ago can remain a hot topic centuries later.

If you grew up in the U.S., you probably learned about the Salem witch trials of 1692, when over 200 people around the colonial Massachusetts town of Salem were accused of witchcraft and 19 were hanged.

The situation began when a few young women began experiencing fits of screaming, pain, contortions and all manner of other bizarre behavior. What was the cause? According to the young women, nearby witches. They accused a few individuals of practicing witchcraft against them, and from there, the accusations spiraled out of control.

Even today, we love to talk about what the real reason behind the trials could have been. One of the most hotly debated theories is the 1976 proposal of psychologist Linnda Caporael: ergot poisoning.

Ergot is a type of fungus of the genus Claviceps. It grows on rye and other grains, producing natural toxins, or mycotoxins, called ergot alkaloids that are dangerous to humans and animals who consume them. Some of the chemicals Claviceps produces were used to create the hallucinogenic drug LSD, if that gives you an idea of what the mold might do to a person.

If you eat contaminated grain, you get ergot poisoning, otherwise known as “ergotism.” Ergotism can cause hallucinations, convulsions, an itchy and burning sensation, serious gangrene and in the worst cases, death. These symptoms aren’t far from what supposed witch victims who testified in the Salem trials claim to have experienced.

“Accusations of choking, pinching, pricking with pins and biting by the specter of the accused formed the standard testimony of the afflicted in almost all the examinations and trials,” wrote Caporael. “The choking suggests the involvement of the involuntary muscle fibers that is typical of ergot poisoning; the biting, pinching and pricking may allude to the crawling and tingling sensations under the skin experienced by ergotism victims.”

Caporael also discusses psychological effects of the affliction. “There are mental disturbances such as mania, melancholia, psychosis and delirium,” she wrote of ergotism. “All of these symptoms are alluded to in the Salem witchcraft records.”

Apart from symptoms, Caporael argues that the environmental conditions were right for ergot to develop at that time, in that place. She notes that wild rye, a host plant for ergot native to the area, had already proven to be a poor forage grass for early colonists because cattle were coming down with a mysterious illness. Rye had quickly become a well-established New England crop, and records from the time suggest that weather conditions that year would have supported the growth of ergot while it was in storage to be used as a wintertime staple crop.

The points against the claim

Despite the fact that Caporael’s claim is fairly well known, it’s still considered a fringe theory because there’s just no way to prove something like that. There are several points against the idea, too.

Convulsive ergotism, the kind of ergotism that Caporael argued Salem suffered from, occurs mostly where the local diet lacks Vitamin A. Salem, as a successful farming town with a nearby port, probably enjoyed a diverse and nutritious diet.

Other critics point out that infections largely impacted individuals and didn’t follow a household-based pattern like one would expect from something coming from the food supply.

No records mention that the supposed witch victims suffered vomiting or diarrhea, which are symptoms of ergotism. Not to mention, the girls reported seeing the specters of specific individuals from around town during their episodes, rather than the simple perceptual distortions associated with normal ergotism hallucinations.

The witch victims could break into episodes almost on command — for instance during the court trial — with symptoms that changed over time (and just so happened to match Puritan descriptions of demonic possession).

Some scholars argue it was a simple case of mass hysteria.

Caporael never intended for her theory to be considered a complete and whole explanation, however. In a town as chock full of conflict and political intrigue as Salem — land disputes were as heated as could be — it’s quite possible that townspeople took a few girls' ergotism episodes and ran with them in order to take down their foes, if moldy rye really is involved.

The truth is, as frustrating as it is to leave mysteries unsolved, we’ll never really know what sparked the witchy nightmare. The one thing we know we can take away is this: Watch out for grain mold!

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