On an agricultural level, the growing conditions were right for ergot to flourish - a wet season in 1691 would have been perfect for ergot to spread on the rye. But Caporael and later supporting scholars, like Mary Matossian, present a compelling case that a fungus was among the people of Salem. Without a doubt, the theory is controversial (more on that later). Some say that a slave, Tituba, dosed girls with jimsonweed that caused them to experience symptoms of witchcraft, while other theories propose that encephalitis lethargica (the sleeping sickness featured in the film Awakenings) may have been present in Salem. There are other medical theories for the Salem witch trialsĮrgot isn't the only medical explanation for the Salem witch trials (though, like ergotism, these explanations are on the fringe for historians). The best case that the Salem witch trials were caused by bad bread That tipped off Caporael, since those symptoms sounded similar to the ones reported by people who'd fallen prey to "witchcraft" in Salem. If people ingest it, they can develop gangrenous ergotism (which causes the limbs to fall off) or convulsive ergotism (which can include convulsions, choking, pricking, and even hallucinations). Any questions? ( Wikimedia Commons)īut its effects are much more serious. It's a condition that results from a fungus that grows on rye. In search of a concrete explanation for the witch-hunting mania, she stumbled upon a theory so wild it just might be true: A fungus in bad bread caused the symptoms of "witchcraft" that drove Salemites to persecute one another. Caporael floated in her 1976 paper Ergotism: The Satan Loosed In Salem.
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