the outbreak of the crazies in Salemn has been theorized as being a result of ergot poisoning.
fasinating stuff.
http://www.hbci.com/~wenonah/history/ergot.htm
"My goal was to demonstrate that women could be as wicked as men. As I began researching, I remember having one of those kind of 'ah-hah!' experiences, where I was reading a book in which the author said he was at a loss to explain the hallucinations of all these people in Salem. It was that word 'hallucinations' that made everything click. Years and years ago, when I was a little kid, I had read about the French case of ergot poisoning, and I made the connection between the two."
and...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergotism
Salem witchcraft accusationsThe convulsive symptoms that can be a result of consuming ergot-tainted rye have also been said to be the cause of accusations of bewitchment that spurred the Salem witch trials. This medical explanation for the theory of “bewitchment” is one first propounded by Linnda R. Caporael in 1976 in an article in Science. In her article, Caporael argues that the convulsive symptoms, such as crawling sensations in the skin, tingling in the fingers, vertigo, tinnitus aurium, headaches, disturbances in sensation, hallucination, painful muscular contractions, vomiting and diarrhea, as well as psychological symptoms, such as mania, melancholia, psychosis and delirium, were all symptoms reported in the Salem witchcraft records. Caporael also states there was an abundance of rye in the region as well as climate conditions that could support the tainting of rye.[6] In 1982 historian Mary Matossian raised Caporael’s theory in an article in American Scientist in which she argued that symptoms of “bewitchment” resemble the ones exhibited in those afflicted with ergot poisoning.[7]
The hypothesis that ergotism could explain cases of bewitchment has been subject to debate and has been criticized by several scholars. Within a year of Caporael’s article, the historians Spanos and Gottlieb argued against the idea in the same journal. In Spanos and Gottlieb’s rebuttal to Caporael’s article, they concluded that there are several flaws in the explanation of ergot poisoning as a cause of conditions associated with cases of alleged bewitchment. For example, they argued that if the food supply was contaminated, the symptoms would have occurred on a house-by-house basis, not just in particular individuals. Historian Leon Harrier has challenged this theory by claiming that even if supplies were properly cooked, residents suffering from stomach ulcer's had a risk of absorbing the toxin through the stomach lining, offering a direct route to the blood stream. Being similar to Lysergic acid diethylamide, the chemical composition of the average humans stomach would be too acidic for the ergot to survive, especially if the food was properly cooked, but if some residents were malnourished and suffering from bleeding stomach ulcers, there is valid reasoning to say that while most of the residents would not be affected by ingesting contaminated grains, a small percentage could have become infected, offering an explanation for why ergotism was never initially recognized. Harrier has even argued that the numbers could have been exponentially larger, possibly even the entire town, but due to the trials on bewitchment and heresy, and the fear of being accused and subsequently executed, few could come forward while suffering from legitimate medical conditions. Spanos and Gottlieb also state that ergot poisoning has additional symptoms not associated with the events in Salem and that the proportion of children afflicted were less than in a typical ergotism epidemic.[8] The anthropologist H. Sidky noted that ergotism had existed for centuries before the Salem witch trials, and argued that its symptoms would have been recognizable during the time of the Salem witch trials.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Now where it that puke emoticon?
