How a bad batch of bread might have led to the Salem witch trials
In January 1692, a 9-year-old girl named Elizabeth Parris and an 11-year-old girl named Abigail Williams started behaving abnormally.
Both were well-behaved, healthy children until they started having strange fits. They started screaming, throwing objects, curling up in strange positions and saying they were being harmed by excessive pinching and poking (even though nobody was pinching and poking them).
A few days later, another girl named Ann Putnam started behaving the same way.
Local doctors investigating the girls determined that there was no medical explanation and concluded that the cause was supernatural — most likely, witches. The girls were questioned for days and were demanded to tell authorities what witch was responsible for making them unwell.
Finally, after days of exhaustion, the girls gave three names of women they said made them possessed. The women accused were a slave and two homeless people.
More women started to show the same behaviors and the town of Salem, Massachusetts and surrounding areas went into a panic. Their community was being taken over by witches and the devil, they believed.
To combat this invasion, the government set up a court system specifically to identify potential witches and put them on trial. Over the next year, dozens of people were convicted of witchcraft, and 20 people and two dogs were executed to rid the town of the witches.
Yes, two dogs were determined to be witches that were influencing and infecting others. How that was determined is unknown!
A toxic batch of bread?
For the next 300 years, scientists have speculated on what caused the behavior leading to the Salem witch trials and similar episodes in other parts of the world. Some believed it was caused by an unknown illness, while others believe the teenagers were just acting to gain attention.
It wasn’t until 1967 that the first real explanation was hypothesized. A doctoral student named Linnda Caporael was studying the Salem witch trials and made an interesting discovery.
During her investigation, she came across the diary of a Salem villager named Samuel Sewall. His detailed notes included reports of a very wet, warm spring, followed by a very hot and humid summer.
This kind of weather is the perfect environment for a toxic fungus called Claviceps purpurea. This fungus is often referred to as ergot. Ergot grows on grain during very hot and wet conditions.
Its growth looks like grain, so farmers would not notice it as they sent the grain and the toxic fungus growth into the mills to be process and stored.
Ergot poisoning impacts the nervous system, causing muscle spasms and hallucinations in those who ingest it. The more that is ingested, the more symptoms are exhibited. Outbreaks of ergot growth are typically localized and confined to small areas. This also made sense to the researcher.
When the records from the Salem witch trials were studied, it was found that nearly all of those infected with the bizarre fits and behaviors were from just one side of town. That side of the town got its grain from one particular grain mill. The other side of the town had almost no cases. That side of town got its grain from a different mill.
Other cases
While the Salem witch trials are the most famous, other communities around the world had similar scares and trials, including a large roundup of witches in Norway in the 1600s.
In studying the accounts of those trials, and notes on the weather during that growing season, it is believed thatthese other cases were also caused by ergot poisoning.
While so much time has passed to know for sure, it seems likely that the entire witchcraft scare was caused by some bad rye bread.
Mike Szydlowski is a science teacher and zoo facilitator at Jefferson STEAM School.
TIME FOR A POP QUIZ
1. What were the Salem witch trials?
2. The sick were not accused of witchcraft. Who was?
3. Why was the fungus not noticed on the grain seeds?
4. What was the big clue that led the researcher to suspect ergot poisoning?
5. Do you think a similar scenario could happen today? Why or why not?
LAST WEEK'S POP QUIZ ANSWERS
1. Why is our blood red?
Our blood is red because of the reaction of the iron in hemoglobin and oxygen in our blood.
2. How is oxygen carried to all the cells in our body?
In normal blood, hemoglobin bonds with oxygen atoms and carries it throughout our body.
3. Why did Elizabeth Smith not know that she was carrying this gene?
Her family would never know that they carried a single recessive gene for this trait until the unlikely scenario it matched with another recessive gene.
4. What is a recessive gene?
A recessive gene is one in which the trait will not show unless it is paired with another of the same type of recessive gene.
5. Besides the discovery of a medicine, why do you think this condition is not as common today compared to the 1800s?
People can travel much easier, so the likelihood of purposefully or accidentally marrying distant cousins is more rare.
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: How a bad batch of bread might have led to the Salem witch trials
