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Salem Witch Trials Research Paper

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The Salem Witch Trials began in the spring of 1692 after a group of young girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts claimed to be possessed by the devil and accused several residents of witchcraft. Nineteen of the accused were executed by hanging and one person was pressed to death. The young girls claimed that Samuel Parris’ Caribbean slave, Tituba, was the first to perform witchcraft and tell the girls about witchcraft and voodoo. The fatal frenzy began after the nine-year-old daughter and eleven-year-old niece of Salem’s Puritan minister, Samuel Parris, started behaving strangely and erratically. Abigail Williams, his niece, was the first to display fits of hysteria. Betty Parris, the daughter, soon became sick, and soon after her two more …show more content…

Sclerotia can be mistaken for large, discolored grains of rye. Within them are potent chemicals such as ergot alkaloids, lysergic acid, and ergotamine. The drug LSD is a derivative of ergot, and is made from the lysergic acid within sclerotia (“The Witches Curse, Clues and Evidence," par. 3). Ergot-contaminated food can lead to a convulsive disorder characterized by violent muscle spasms, vomiting, delusions, hallucinations, crawling sensations on the skin, and a host of other symptoms such as a fixedly twisted head and feeling as though you have been bitten. Ergot poisoning would also explain the sudden end to the "bewitchments," as the following year there was a drought, so ergot would not have infested the rye crop (“The Witches Curse, Clues and Evidence," par. 4). The physician, Dr. William Griggs, did not originally diagnose the girls with a disease, because he knew that diseases were contagious. Since it seemed as if the fits did not spread quickly throughout the population, he did not pursue alternative medical explanations. This is why the physician believed that it must be Satan who was responsible (Ray, “Salem Witch Trials Notable Persons," pg.

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