1 00:00:00,560 --> 00:00:03,760 Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how 2 00:00:03,800 --> 00:00:13,880 Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 3 00:00:13,920 --> 00:00:17,440 Speaker 1: I'm editor Candice Gibson, joint day by staff writer Josh Clark. 4 00:00:17,520 --> 00:00:19,960 Speaker 1: How's it going, Josh? Going pretty well? How are you, Candide? 5 00:00:20,160 --> 00:00:22,040 Speaker 1: I'm doing great. I was just listening to one of 6 00:00:22,040 --> 00:00:24,960 Speaker 1: my favorite albums of all time, Pink Floyd Dark Side 7 00:00:24,960 --> 00:00:27,880 Speaker 1: of the Moon, and I'm really pretty mellow. Yeah, well 8 00:00:27,920 --> 00:00:30,920 Speaker 1: far out because my question today actually has to do 9 00:00:31,000 --> 00:00:34,360 Speaker 1: with LSD, which, as I understand, is a great accompaniment 10 00:00:34,400 --> 00:00:39,080 Speaker 1: to Dark Side of the Moon. I wouldn't know that. Indeed, 11 00:00:39,240 --> 00:00:41,839 Speaker 1: it actually has to do with, strangely enough, the Salem 12 00:00:41,840 --> 00:00:44,720 Speaker 1: Witchcraft Trials, if you can believe it. That's really weird. 13 00:00:44,760 --> 00:00:47,080 Speaker 1: What can colonial Salem have to do with a bad 14 00:00:47,159 --> 00:00:49,760 Speaker 1: ascid trap? Well, I'll tell you, okay, So let me 15 00:00:49,760 --> 00:00:54,400 Speaker 1: set the scene. It's Salem, Massachusetts. There's about five people 16 00:00:54,960 --> 00:00:59,920 Speaker 1: living in in Salem Colony at the time, and things 17 00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:02,240 Speaker 1: are really starting to go awry. They are, And just 18 00:01:02,320 --> 00:01:04,560 Speaker 1: to bring everybody up to speed, this is a settlement 19 00:01:04,600 --> 00:01:07,160 Speaker 1: that was founded on Puritan ideal. So we're supposed to 20 00:01:07,240 --> 00:01:09,640 Speaker 1: be a new eat in a very religious place and 21 00:01:09,680 --> 00:01:12,280 Speaker 1: then it seemed like the devil had been set loose 22 00:01:12,319 --> 00:01:17,640 Speaker 1: on this village. The smallpox outbreak attacks from Indian born nearby. Yeah, 23 00:01:17,840 --> 00:01:21,600 Speaker 1: and basically the kids weren't adhering quite as much to 24 00:01:21,680 --> 00:01:24,200 Speaker 1: the rules that the adults had hoped for. They were, 25 00:01:24,440 --> 00:01:26,960 Speaker 1: you know, American born children of immigrants, and you know 26 00:01:26,959 --> 00:01:29,119 Speaker 1: how crazy they can be. And if you thought Paris 27 00:01:29,160 --> 00:01:32,920 Speaker 1: Hilton's antics were bad, Elizabeth Parris was an entirely different story. 28 00:01:33,120 --> 00:01:36,400 Speaker 1: Now she's the twelve year old daughter of the new minister, 29 00:01:36,800 --> 00:01:38,839 Speaker 1: and all of a sudden one day she comes down 30 00:01:38,920 --> 00:01:42,080 Speaker 1: with this weird mania. She's throwing herself around the room. 31 00:01:42,440 --> 00:01:46,520 Speaker 1: She's marking like a dog, complaining of being bitten um 32 00:01:46,560 --> 00:01:49,640 Speaker 1: and pinched by unseen forces. So they bring the doctor, 33 00:01:49,720 --> 00:01:53,200 Speaker 1: and the doctor reaches the extent of his medical knowledge apparently, 34 00:01:53,200 --> 00:01:56,440 Speaker 1: and pronounces the girl under the influence of witchcraft. So 35 00:01:56,520 --> 00:01:58,800 Speaker 1: at this point all fingers point to Chichiba, who's a 36 00:01:58,840 --> 00:02:02,440 Speaker 1: Barbadian born sleigh end. Then when she denyes having any 37 00:02:02,480 --> 00:02:05,840 Speaker 1: hand in this, what happens to the town? Well, actually 38 00:02:05,880 --> 00:02:11,320 Speaker 1: they pressed her and she eventually confessed bafflingly enough, but uh, 39 00:02:11,440 --> 00:02:14,280 Speaker 1: other people started having fingers pointed at him and next 40 00:02:14,280 --> 00:02:18,000 Speaker 1: thing you know, ipso facto, nineteen people are hung and dead. Now, 41 00:02:18,120 --> 00:02:21,000 Speaker 1: what I'm talking about is a theory um that this 42 00:02:21,120 --> 00:02:23,679 Speaker 1: was actually the result of an ascid trip, that the 43 00:02:24,000 --> 00:02:26,960 Speaker 1: colonists were under the influence of drugs. Is that fact 44 00:02:27,080 --> 00:02:29,720 Speaker 1: or fiction? Oh, I'm on the fence about this one. 45 00:02:29,880 --> 00:02:31,600 Speaker 1: I'm going to go with a little bit fact, a 46 00:02:31,639 --> 00:02:35,120 Speaker 1: little bit fiction. There's a historian named Linda Caparell who 47 00:02:35,160 --> 00:02:37,720 Speaker 1: posed the theory that these girls suffered from something called 48 00:02:37,840 --> 00:02:41,200 Speaker 1: ergot poisoning. And ergot essentially is the type of mold 49 00:02:41,320 --> 00:02:44,000 Speaker 1: that grows on grains like rye, and it can affect 50 00:02:44,040 --> 00:02:47,920 Speaker 1: your body. And there's two basic types, gangrenus, which causes 51 00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:51,160 Speaker 1: dry rotting limbs and blisters on your skin and itching, 52 00:02:51,240 --> 00:02:54,680 Speaker 1: burning skin. And then the other type is called convulsive urgetism. 53 00:02:55,040 --> 00:02:57,480 Speaker 1: And that's a lot like the symptoms Elizabeth Paris had 54 00:02:57,480 --> 00:03:00,679 Speaker 1: with the mania and the psychosis, working like a dog, 55 00:03:00,760 --> 00:03:03,680 Speaker 1: barking like a dog. And here's the crazy thing, and 56 00:03:03,760 --> 00:03:06,960 Speaker 1: that's that no matter how much you refine the grain 57 00:03:07,160 --> 00:03:10,080 Speaker 1: on which this mold grows, even if you refine it 58 00:03:10,120 --> 00:03:13,000 Speaker 1: down into bread, you can still get this type of poisoning. 59 00:03:13,960 --> 00:03:17,440 Speaker 1: It's possible that this is what caused the Salem witchcraft trust. 60 00:03:17,720 --> 00:03:20,840 Speaker 1: It's definitely one contender in the realm of possibility, and 61 00:03:20,960 --> 00:03:22,760 Speaker 1: now it's hard to believe. Well, if you want to 62 00:03:22,840 --> 00:03:24,720 Speaker 1: learn more about it, you can check out where the 63 00:03:24,720 --> 00:03:28,359 Speaker 1: American colonists drug during the Salem witchcraft trial on how 64 00:03:28,400 --> 00:03:32,560 Speaker 1: stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands 65 00:03:32,600 --> 00:03:35,840 Speaker 1: of other topics. Because at how stuff works dot com, 66 00:03:36,040 --> 00:03:38,080 Speaker 1: let us know what you think. Send an email to 67 00:03:38,240 --> 00:03:46,840 Speaker 1: podcast at how stuff works dot com.