Maybe everybody was eating tainted bread. I only mention this cuz I want to beat Tim for a change.
The connection between werewolf and witch hysteria and the accidental consumption of hallucinogenic compounds isn’t a recent development. In fact, over the last eight centuries various physicians and scientists have made striking cases for a correlation between diet and werewolf and witch trials, but most were ignored while scores of people were executed as being possessed and having made pacts with the devil. Furthermore, tens of thousands died in Medieval Europe as a result of supposed curses either cast by witches or werewolves, or that caused a person to become a werewolf or witch. Despite the fact that werewolves and other creatures of lore remain popular today, these fictional creatures are actually based in a dark but very real past – a past that likely included hallucinogenic poisonings.
A surprising amount of both anecdotal and empirical evidence suggests that the werewolf hysteria that gripped Europe in the middle-ages and the witch hysteria that plagued the US centuries later were both caused by acute convulsive ergotism. Ergotism refers to a pathogenic condition caused by consumption of the ergot fungus and occurs in both humans and animals. According to the North Dakota State University Agricultural Department;
“Ergot, caused by the fungus Claviceps purpurea, is a disease of cereal crops and grasses. The disease causes reduced yield and quality of grains and hay and also causes a livestock disease called ergotism, if infected grains or hay are fed. Ergot’s medicinal applications and animal poisoning properties first called attention to this plant disease. Human poisoning was common in Europe in the Middle Ages when ergoty rye bread was often consumed.” (1)
Convulsive ergotism causes muscle twitching, spasms, altered mental states and hallucinations or delusions, sweating and long term fever. (2) There is no specific treatment for ergotism except to treat symptomatically; however, discontinuation of consuming the contaminated food source will eventually lead to the return of a normal physical state. However, changes in mental state caused by ergotism can be permanent in some cases. It is these mental disturbances that are most troubling, as when combined with severe hallucinations human behavior can become very erratic – especially when large populations are eating the same contaminated food. According to Crystal Links.COM;
“Ergot poisoning usually affects whole towns or at least poor areas of towns and results in hallucinations, mass hysteria and paranoia, as well as convulsions and sometimes death. (LSD can be derived from ergot.) Ergot poisoning has been proposed as both a cause of an individual believing that he or she is a werewolf and of a whole town believing that they had seen a werewolf.” “[But] even if ergot poisoning is found to be an accurate explanation in some cases, it cannot be applied to all instances.” (3)
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