I came across the piece by Matossian (1988, see the precis from the Hawai Botany Institute below) suggesting ergotism as at least a possible factor in outbreaks of witch-burning in 17th century Europe some time ago, but thinking about it the other day I wondered if there was at least the possibility that it might also be a factor in the apparently spontaneous outbursts of anti-semitism and pogroms in medieval europe.
Jon Cloke
GaWC
Loughborough University
Ergotism and Witchcraft
It has recently been postulated that such victims of
ergotism were often thought to be witches. In talking about witches and witchcraft,
just how would one go about deciding that someone is a witch? One thing to keep
in mind is that these incidents that we will be talking about happened
centuries ago. So, you may think the criteria kind of silly when you hear them.
If you saw someone with the symptoms of ergotism, and you didn't know about
ergotism, you may guess that the individual having a muscle spasm, tremors and
writhing had some type of physical problem, such as epilepsy, or maybe even be
on drugs, especially if they were hallucinating. Most people wouldn't think
that witchcraft was involved. However, you now know that even during the last
century the cause of diseases was still not known. Even today, there are people
that not only believe in witchcraft, but even practice witchcraft. It seems
that people have always been willing to believe in fanciful explanation for a
given phenomenon rather than an a simple one. So when there were large number
of people that came down with the symptoms of ergotism, it was concluded that
they must have been the victims of witchcraft. It was especially true for
convulsive ergotism since some people would claim to hear the devil speaking to
them and were thought to be possessed.
Matossian (1988) linked the occurrence of ergotism with periods where
there were high incidents of people persecuted for being witches. Emphasis was
placed on the Salem Witch Trial, in
How did Matossian arrive at the conclusion that the
bewitched individuals were victims of ergotism rather than something else?
There are many symptoms that are attributed to ergotism and while together they
may be rather unique, there are other diseases, or physical afflictions that
may also have some of these symptoms. However, Matossian did not rely on just
one indicator (the symptoms) to determine that ergotism was responsible for
witchcraft hysteria, but looked at several other parameters as well. She looked
at where these incidents occurred, the temperature, rainfall, the crops grown
in that area and who was affected.
In looking at the geography of where witch trials occurred
in
How did the witch hunt begin? Once victims of ergotism began
exhibiting symptoms of alkaloid poisoning of Ergot, people began to look for
the "witch or witches" that caused this sickness and misery to occur.
In
The people that were accused of witchcraft were likely the
ones that were trying to help the unfortunate victims. They were usually the
doctors, or herbalists, a person who uses plants for medicinal purposes. So
these were not the professions to be in during times of witch hysteria. These
particular people were selected as the "witches" because, as healers,
they had what seemed to be magical powers over the human body when they cured
their patients of what ailed them. And the healers were in some cases able to
heal symptoms that were associated with ergotism. For example, mistletoe was
effective against some kinds of convulsions and spasms. However, during these
bouts of ergotism, their accusers reasoned that if someone could cure illness,
they also had the power to cause it as well. Which is why they weren't accused
of causing bubonic plague and other diseases for which they did not have a
cure. Doctors today actually don't have it that different. If you become sick
or just say you became sick while a doctor is treating you, you can probably
blame the doctor. This situation in which the healer is accused of being a
witch is very much analogous to the doctor being sued for malpractice.
However, there are also some records where there did not seem to be any correlation between witchcraft and ergotism. What explanation can be offered for these cases. One explanation of which we cannot be certain is that the symptoms described on records were real. It seems very likely that at least some of the accused people were framed for practicing witchcraft as a means of getting even with somebody. However, these types of events can sometimes be separated. For example, young children and adolescents were frequently the victims and it seemed unlikely that they trying to "get even" with a neighbor. Another explanation was that during bad times when many people became sick and ill, witchcraft persecution would also be prevalent. Witchcraft in this case was used since something or somebody had to be blamed for what occurred.”
http://www.botany.hawaii.edu/faculty/wong/BOT135/LECT12.HTM