Secrets of the Dead (2000–…): Season 2, Episode 1 - The Witches Curse - full transcript

Tonight, condemned as witches.

I can't imagine anything worse

than being accused of
something you didn't do

and you'd never be able
to prove your innocence.

But if the Salem
trials were today

could modern drug testing
provide the evidence to acquit?

This could be
associated with LSD.

An autopsy on this ancient mummy

may help unravel
the witches' curse

as we uncover
Secrets of the Dead.

Secrets of the Dead
was made possible



by contributions to
your PBS station from:

Almost every
civilization in history

has believed in witches

and their supernatural
power to do great harm.

Witches were said to have
sold their souls to the Devil

in return for the power
to bewitch other mortals.

When people fell sick
with unexplainable ailments

witchcraft was blamed.

And if a person was
accused of being a witch

there was little they could
do to prove their innocence.

They usually suffered
severe consequences.

But now there might
finally be an explanation

for the mysterious
symptoms of bewitchment

that have resulted in so many
false accusations and deaths.



As I was starting to work
through this jigsaw of evidence

I felt like a detective.

I was on a... on a
great sleuthing project

and every time some piece
of evidence fell into place

I was so excited.

Linnda Caporael's investigation

may also have
unearthed the true culprit

behind an ancient
murder mystery...

A man brutally hacked to
death more than 2,000 years ago.

Her breakthrough:

a link to an hallucinogenic
drug made famous in the 1960s.

Between the 15th
and 17th centuries

witch persecution in Europe
reached epidemic proportions.

During three dark centuries

more than 40,000 innocent men,
women and children were killed

for supposedly
bewitching other people.

The threat was
perceived to be so real

even the Vatican
issued warning decrees

and the panic and
zeal that followed

led to horrific witch-hunts
all across the continent.

In Germany, one hunt resulted
in 274 suspected witches

being burned at the
stake in a single year.

And the danger did not end

when the Europeans
came to the New World.

The settlers brought with them
their superstitions and laws.

The practice of witchcraft
was the work of the Devil...

A crime punishable by death.

The most famous
of all the witch trials

happened in the early days of
this small New England town.

Today, Salem is a
tourist destination

with a penchant for trinkets.

But its mottled history
is far more dark.

The truth is a
tragedy made famous

by Arthur Miller's
play, The Crucible.

In 1692, Salem was hit
by a mysterious sickness

that left many in
the town horribly ill.

Lacking a better explanation,
doctors blamed bewitchment

and the roundup that
followed devastated the town.

150 people were imprisoned

and 19 men and women
were executed as witches.

Until the end, they
protested their innocence.

In my view, the people
who were hanged

during the Salem
witch trials were heroes

because they probably could
have saved their lives by confessing.

Sarah Good, I think,
was 38 years old.

She had a baby die in prison.

She left her little five-year-
old daughter chained in prison

and went to the gallows.

Every account that exists
say they went very bravely.

They didn't beg for mercy.

They didn't complain,
they didn't... nothing.

They just took their fate

and I think that's
extraordinarily brave...

extraordinarily brave.

I can't imagine such dignity
and, um, such firmness of faith.

Their faith was the
reason they were there.

Their town was one of
the first Puritan settlements

in the New World

and the few hundred
residents were desperate

to eke out an agricultural
existence from the land.

They wanted to practice a more
fundamental form of Christianity

than had been
allowed in England.

"Puritan" comes
from the word "purify."

So they wanted to
be much more simple

than the Church of England.

They wanted to found

as John Winthrop
said, "a city on the hill"

that would be admired
and would be, uh...

would gain God's approval.

In order to do that

they needed to be
intensely loyal to His word

as it was interpreted by
ministers from the Bible.

And that meant that their
lives were very circumspect

and very, um... very
difficult, probably.

When things went wrong

they turned to the
Church for guidance.

The people spent a
lot of time in church.

It wasn't just a half hour.

It was a long session...
Morning and afternoon.

And this was the
key to how they lived.

And so anything that seemed

to be aberrant in that society

had to be addressed
right away and fixed

because they needed
to stay on the path

that they had set
themselves to follow

that was going to be, in
God's sight, a good path.

It was a very intense
way to live, I believe

and anything could
throw it into a turmoil.

They had no knowledge of science

as... as would happen
in the 18th century

so, for instance, a storm
might be interpreted

as a sign of God's displeasure

or a crop failure or a
drought... that sort of thing.

So in December 1691

when a number of
settlers were struck down

by a terrifying illness during
a particularly harsh winter

they were convinced
that the agents of the Devil

were responsible.

They had to be ever
vigilant against Satan

who was waiting and
waiting to, um, catch people

and take them to his side.

The ill suffered from
violent convulsions or fits.

They would writhe in
agony, screaming in terror.

Their skin felt like it was
being pricked all over by pins.

And they were tormented

by haunting visions
of wild animals.

As the symptoms
spread through the town

people began to panic,
desperate for answers.

Science could not provide any

so the town doctor made the
only diagnosis he could think of:

he blamed witchcraft.

During the year that followed,
eight afflicted young girls

become the most
powerful force in Salem.

A court was convened
where they testified

that they had been bewitched.

Convulsing and
wailing in the courtroom

they began to accuse
countless innocent citizens

of being witches.

I think there was terrible fear in
the communities around Salem

that names were going to
be mentioned by the girls

and action was going to be taken
by adults against those people.

And you wouldn't want
your name mentioned.

You wouldn't want to be
called in on a complaint

and questioned.

The questioning was
always going to conclude

that you were guilty.

And so the girls' behavior...

Because the authorities
paid attention to it...

Created a terrible fear.

Fear turned to hysteria as
the accusations of the sick girls

reached even the
most unlikely quarters.

Rebecca Nurse...

Of all the victims,
she's the one that seems

to epitomize the...
the Puritan matriarch.

A saintly woman;
everyone loved her.

Her... her family
was all around her.

She was 72, in ill health.

I mean, it's a
very... a sad story

to think of a woman like that
being accused of something

that in that
context in that time

was an outrageous thing...

just outrageous to think you
had made a pact with the Devil.

In the space of nine
months, 150 so-called witches

had been singled out,
arrested and thrown into prison.

Each was presented
with an impossible choice:

confess to bewitching
the girls or face execution.

19 chose to die.

It became pretty clear that
you were going to be found guilty

unless you confessed

and if you confessed, you were
committing a crime against God

which would be even
worse than dying.

I can't imagine anything worse

than being accused of
something you didn't do

and knowing you'd never be
able to prove your innocence.

And 200 years later, modern
science may be able to prove

that there was a perfectly
rational explanation

for the symptoms that
sparked the execution

of so many innocent
men and women.

Professor Linnda Caporael
is a behavioral psychologist

with an interest in
the Salem witch trials.

When she first began her
investigation into Salem

she embraced the accepted belief

that there was no physical
reason for the illness...

That the eight girls
were simply malicious

and had faked their symptoms.

The conventional
explanation of Salem

was that it was psychological.

The girls were, uh,
described by one historian

as a pack of
bobby-soxers on the loose.

They were trying to become
the center of attention

and, um, from this grew hysteria

that spread throughout
the community.

But for Linnda, the
testimony defied

such a simple explanation.

She agreed that the girls
may have lied on the stand

but felt that some of their
symptoms were too severe

to have been made up.

Clearly there is some
faking of hallucinations.

There is some
faking of convulsions.

But the original afflictions

and the descriptions
of the afflictions

could not have been faked.

People described a black
thing comes into the room

and the thing has
the body of a monkey

and the legs and
the claws of a rooster

and has a face that looks
something like a man.

The convulsions that are
described are so horrible.

One description
has, um... has a girl

that is convulsing
so badly that her head

is almost touching her heels.

The forms of these convulsions
literally wrenched the body.

Linnda examined the
prevalence of the illness

that had driven the
Salem witch trials.

She found that the
tormenting hallucinations

and nightmare visions

were far more widespread
than she had previously thought.

It wasn't just the girls

who were experiencing
hallucinations.

Other people in the community...
Men as well as women...

Were hallucinating or
reported hallucinations

and making accusations.

The evidence was
there in the trial records.

"I saw a woman coming towards us

"about 16 or 20 pole from
us, but did not know who it was.

"My wife could not see her.

"When I did get up
on my horse again

"to my understanding,
there stood a cow

where I saw the woman."

Linnda pondered
what could have caused

such bizarre hallucinations.

When the unexpected answer
came, it was a flash of inspiration.

One evening I was
studying with a friend

and I was rereading
another historian's account

of the Salem events

and there was something in
the paragraph that I was reading

that... just made me think this
could be associated with LSD.

LSD, more popularly
known as "acid"

is a drug with extraordinary
hallucinogenic properties.

It attained
notoriety in the '60s

as the psychedelic potion of
the Flower Power generation

that sprung out of the
Haight-Ashbury neighborhood

of San Francisco.

The draw of LSD was that
it could cause "acid trips."

These trips could be heavenly...

or a living nightmare.

As a student, I lived
in Haight-Ashbury

and knowledge about
LSD was very common.

People described
having hallucinations.

They would see plants
turning into animals;

they would see walls
dripping with blood

or dripping with
different colors.

They reported lights that were
wavy in form and undulating...

stomachache, strange...
strange sensations in their heads

and I was struck
by the similarity

between some of the
things that I was reading

and things that I had heard
years before as a student.

The symptoms of bewitchment

were unsettlingly
reminiscent of a bad acid trip.

But what connection
could there be

between the supposedly
bewitched residents of Salem

and the drug LSD?

The answer lay in
the strange findings

of Swiss neurophysiologist
Albert Hofmann.

Hofmann had made an
extraordinary discovery in 1943

while experimenting with
a naturally growing fungus

called "ergot."

Ergot had long been known to
contain various potent chemicals

and Hofmann had been
trying to harness them

for use in medical applications.

One day in his lab, he made
an extract from the ergot fungus

and then accidentally
spilled some of it on his hand.

The extract must have
been absorbed by his skin

and within hours, he
began to hallucinate.

Colors became intensely vivid;

familiar shapes
seemed distorted.

He had derived LSD from ergot...

A discovery that would
catapult him to medical fame

and give him a godlike status
in the eyes of the hippies.

Linnda now had the possible
connection she was looking for...

A natural fungus
capable of producing

LSD-like hallucinations.

She consulted a medical friend

to see whether the
symptoms of ergot poisoning

matched the records from Salem.

I said to my friend,
"Do you have anything

that is like a pharmacological
encyclopedia?"

He was a premed student

so this wasn't such a
bizarre question to ask him.

And it was almost
as if the description

in the pharmacological reference

had been taken from the
trial records themselves.

It was just... it was
just extraordinary.

And... and that for me was
a real "Eureka" moment.

To check out her theory,
she decided to put it

to the original LSD expert,
Albert Hofmann himself.

I wrote him a letter, suggesting
to him what my hypothesis was

and he wrote me back

and he said, "Well,
it sounds plausible."

It wasn't a long
letter, but certainly

he answered the question
that I needed him to answer.

Her hunch was a good
one, but there was a problem.

If ergot was behind
the hallucinations

how had the residents of
Salem come into contact

with the fungus
in the first place?

One pivotal piece of evidence

pointed her in
the right direction.

She discovered that both people
and animals had been affected.

"My husband, Benjamin Abbott

"had not only been afflicted
in his body, as he testifies

"but also that strange
and unusual things

"has happened to his cattle

"for some have died
suddenly and strangely

which we could not tell
any natural reason for."

Men were sick.

Babies were dying.

Animals in the community
were acting strangely

and people were concerned
about the odd behaviors there.

So it begins to
look like something

that could be in the food
source but it's got to be something

that both people and
animals would be consuming...

which would suggest
going towards grain.

Grain was the primary
food source in Salem

and it was harvested from
rye, their dominant cereal crop.

It fed both the human
residents and the farm animals.

But was there a relationship
between the ergot and the rye?

Professor Maurice Moss
has made a lifelong study

of poisonous fungi.

Here's an ergot, and...

that little black thing there,
you see, sticking out there.

Rye and... and barley
are the two main food crops

but there are about 17
other genera of grasses

that are infected by ergot.

When the fungus
germinates in its host

it will use the plant's own
nutrients as its nutrients

and will gradually replace

the material of the
developing grass seed

with its own material.

And you can see it... it
looks rather like a seed.

It's replaced a seed.

So if conditions were right

the ergot fungus
could have infected

the rye fields in Salem.

That would mean the bread
the settlers made from the grain

would also have
been contaminated.

These structures are also packed

with a group of compounds
called "alkaloids."

These are acutely poisonous;

they will kill if you
consume enough of them

but they have all sorts
of other effects, as well.

Some of the natural alkaloids

undoubtedly have
hallucinogenic properties.

The ergot alkaloids
are nerve toxins...

Very complex, very diverse

but all of them have in common
that they are nerve toxins.

In the Salem trial records

Linnda found reports
not just of hallucinations

but also of other
horrific symptoms...

A pin-pricking sensation, like
insects crawling under the skin

and fits so powerful that the
sick could barely be held down.

"We were conversant
with Benjamin Houlton

"for above a week before he died

"and he was acted in
a very strange manner

"with most violent fits.

"And he died a
most violent death

"and the doctor
that was with him

said he could not tell
what his distemper was."

The passage described
a gruesome illness

but, more importantly,
it illustrated a precedent

that had been set long
before the settlers arrived

in the New World.

This was not the first time
doctors had been stumped

by an unknown illness

and this was not the first time

they had made a
diagnosis of witchcraft.

One particular incident
of supposed bewitchment

took place in Europe more
than 100 years before Salem.

It happened in the
English village of Warboys

near Cambridge.

In 1589, a woman was accused
of witchcraft at the manor house.

So now we come in...

Mind your head.

You'll find that the
size of the doors

are really quite low.

I think they were obviously

very much shorter
people in those days.

This is magnificent, yes.

And it's in here that we think,
possibly, most of the action

with regard to Mrs.
Samuel took place.

Doctors and church leaders

had been called in to
diagnose a mystery illness

that had struck down
the five young daughters

of the well-to-do
Throckmorton family

and seven of their servants.

The symptoms were remarkably
similar to those in Salem.

There were a number of doctors

who were extremely
skeptical about witchcraft

but who were willing to
come to the conclusion

that a disease was
caused by witchcraft

or by demonic possession

after all other available
explanations had failed.

It was one of the things

that they had in their
diagnostic armory.

Folklore said that a witch
could send out her familiars...

Animal spirits... To
bewitch the weak

and force them to
make pacts with the devil.

The sick girls showed
all the classic symptoms

of having been bewitched.

They were plagued
by hellish visions

often of wild animals,
just as in Salem.

One of them
imagined she saw a cat

tearing her skin from her flesh.

The girls' bodies bent
double in violent fits.

They writhed on
their beds in agony.

They demonstrate
symptoms which are typical

of the ideas of
bewitchment in the period.

They are meant to
develop abnormal strength

and there are accounts of,
you know, strong grown men

finding it very difficult

to hold down a ten-year-old girl

as she's going through
her fits and her contortions.

A diagnosis of witchcraft
meant that some innocent person

would have to take the blame.

In Warboys, a local
misfit named Alice Samuel

was singled out as the witch.

At the time, it was
standard practice

to torture accused witches.

They were often
branded, mutilated

or held underwater,
struggling for breath.

Anything to force the
accused to confess

and remove the bewitchment.

Another thing which
they believed in the period

was if you scratched
a witch to draw blood

that would again
alleviate the suffering

of the person who was
allegedly bewitched.

And this does happen to her...

This is a form of
physical maltreatment

that she is subjected
to on several occasions.

After a year of
continuous pressure

Alice finally gave up and
confessed to being a witch.

But her confession
brought no relief.

As was the practice at the
time, she was hanged by the neck

and left to die a slow,
tortured death on the gallows.

Her husband and daughter
were hanged as well

for good measure.

By 16th-century standards, it
was an open-and-shut case.

Just as in Salem 100 years later

doctors and church leaders
had blamed bewitchment

for illnesses they
could not explain.

But if the modern,
more scientific theory

of ergot poisoning
was to be confirmed

all the symptoms,
not just hallucinations

would have to fit.

Cutting-edge research being
done by pharmacologists in Holland

shows how ergot could
cause convulsions.

The work centers on an
ergot toxin called "ergotamine"

which they are using in
the treatment of migraines.

Ergot alkaloids have, in general

a vasoconstrictor action.

They constrict smooth muscles...

Smooth muscles
of... not all places...

Smooth muscles
in the blood vessel.

We've found that ergotamine
has a very selective action

on the blood
vessels in this region.

A simple experiment
on live human tissue

reveals how ergot may
have produced the violent fits.

Tiny, six-millimeter
pieces of artery

are mounted on two steel
hooks and placed in a tissue bath.

When a minute amount of
ergotamine, the ergot toxin

is dropped into the tissue bath

its extraordinary
constrictive power is revealed.

Within seconds, the toxin
causes the tissue to seize up

pulling the steel
hooks together.

What this experiment shows...

that ergotamine has constrictive
power on the blood vessels...

Will reduce the blood supply;

will have a constrictor
effect, also, in the chest region

and also reduce the
blood supply to the brain;

can lead to
convulsions, hallucination

and symptoms of that kind.

The needle charts
the effect on the tissue

as the toxin takes hold.

A person suffering
from ergot poisoning

would convulse uncontrollably
as the brain starves for oxygen.

The draining of blood

would cause a pricking
sensation in the skin.

Was this what was
witnessed in Salem?

They look like to me
that there is a possibility

or there is a strong possibility

that they could have
had ergot poisoning.

In her quest to discover

the driving force behind the
senseless executions in Salem

Linnda Caporael had
found a prime suspect.

Her challenge now was
to conclusively place it

at the scene of the crime.

In time, the people in
Salem began to haunt me...

The people who were executed.

And I would dream of them

and... it would seem that, uh...

At times when I just
thought this story is too hard

to put together, the
research is too hard

I'd still feel compelled
to move ahead.

It was always for me, um,
not just a detective story

but it was a story about the
people that had died there.

To honor the people
who had lost their lives

Linnda had to prove

her scientific
explanation was correct.

The symptoms were right

but could she determine
that there had indeed been

an outbreak of ergot
poisoning that year?

The fungus thrives
in wet, damp soil.

Her research showed that in 1691

the Salem farmers
planted their rye crop

in just such low, marshy ground.

The colonists had favorite
places for growing rye.

They liked nice, swampy meadows

which is not only good for
growing rye and growing grain

but it's also good for
promoting conditions

that are conducive to ergot.

The location was ideal.

But the weather conditions
also had to be optimal

if ergot was to contaminate
entire fields of rye.

The initial infection
of a cereal crop

during the late
spring, early summer

requires the dispersal of
a particular kind of spore

that is ejected into
the atmosphere.

And the fungus
needs, um, moisture

in order to have the pressure

to be able to eject
these spores into the air.

So, there is a stage
in that early summer

when a wet, damp
summer will ensure infection.

A mass infection of
Salem's rye harvest

in the months prior
to the witch trials

would have required a
warm, wet spring and summer.

The chance discovery of
a court magistrate's diary

provided just the weather
report Linnda needed.

I did not think that I would be
able to find weather patterns.

After all, it was a long time.

And just by chance
I stumbled upon, uh

a copy reproduction of
Samuel Sewall's diary

and he recorded the weather
in there for, uh, 1691 and 1692

which were the
two critical years.

1691 was a warm, wet spring
with a stormy, wet summer.

And that is the year
when this ergotized grain

would have to have been growing.

Linnda also made
another important discovery

from the trial testimony.

The vast majority
of reports of sickness

were confined to
one side of Salem.

In the village itself amongst
the western half of the village

people were reporting
spontaneous abortion

hallucinations, choking,
pinching, convulsions

uh, strange behavior.

There was a very odd pattern.

But it actually
made perfect sense.

She discovered that
the western farms

contained the swampy marshlands

in which ergot was
most likely to grow.

And when she tracked down
the addresses of the eight girls

at the center of
the witch trials

she found that six would
have been eating rye

from the same large
farm west of town.

I was surprised and
pleased that it was possible

to track down
where people lived.

Three of them were in the
household of Thomas Puttnam.

He was the major landholder.

Thomas Puttnam's land was
this perfect ergot growing ground.

It was the swampy meadows

that the Puritans
valued as farmland.

Two girls lived in the
household of Parris

and one girl lived in the
household of Dr. Griggs.

These two men
were professional men

and they took a lot of their
payment in terms of grain.

The signs were all pointing

towards ergot
poisoning in Salem.

But to strengthen
Linnda's theory

evidence of similar
outbreaks in other places

had to be uncovered.

Rye had been a staple
crop in Europe for centuries.

If evidence of other
infections could be found

it might help explain
the waves of witch hunts

that resulted in the execution

of more than 40,000 innocent
people in the Middle Ages.

The records were promising.

Outbreaks of an affliction

that looked very much
like ergot poisoning

were periodically
documented across Europe

under several different names...

St. Anthony's Fire,
St. Vitas' Dance

and The Evil Writhing.

The illness tended to hit

the poor, weaker peasant
classes the hardest.

It was their rye bread

that was most likely to
become contaminated by ergot.

It doesn't take much imagination

to think how a society which
had not only no antibiotics

but really no medical
knowledge or help

available to the vast
majority of its population

would deal with an outbreak
of contaminated food

and just to see how quickly,
rapidly and disastrously

that could spread.

With no pesticides
kill the fungus

the population was especially
vulnerable in infestation.

It struck hard at those
with the poorest diets.

If one's talking in the case
of something like ergotism

which attacks people
with low disease resistance

and particularly
with low vitamin A

I would have thought the
average medieval peasant

was very susceptible
to such attacks.

If witchcraft was blamed for
the symptoms in one location

it is hardly surprising that
word would have traveled.

A permanent association
would be made

and any illnesses with even
vaguely similar symptoms

would from then on be similarly
attributed to bewitchment.

These cases become paradigms.

People write about
them at the time.

The knowledge of
them then travels around.

It might well travel, you
know, even across the Atlantic

perhaps into the New World.

It certainly travels through
chat books, through ballads

and through learned treatises.

So these things take on
a tremendous importance.

But was there a real connection

between the
outbreaks of ergotism

and the rash of
witch executions?

Historian Mary Matossian
found some startling correlations.

I got into Europe, uh...

because I had to account for
the fact that witchcraft persecution

happens in certain
years and not others

in certain places, not others.

So, I had to cover the map

to make sure I wasn't
missing something.

Western Europe was
ravaged by witch persecution

especially during
a 200-year period

in the 16th and 17th centuries.

But executions took place
only in very specific areas.

Matossian discovered
that these areas did, in fact

significantly overlap with
the major rye-growing regions

and that the weather
conditions during those periods

were ideal for ergot growth.

Of course, the only way to
prove that ergot poisoning

was being misinterpreted
as witchcraft

would be to conduct blood
tests and tissue samples

on the body of a
supposedly bewitched person.

But there are no
available remains

from Salem or Warboys.

But, there is one body
that can be tested...

a body 2,000 years old.

Grauballe Man is one of the
infamous peat bog bodies...

Men and women
mysteriously buried in bogs

during the Iron Age

when druids and
mystics ruled harshly

over superstitious peasants.

He was discovered 50
years ago in his swampy tomb.

It was a fine day in April in
1952 when the peat cutters

they went for
work in a small bog

20 kilometers west of Moesgaard.

And, um, it wasn't long until
they suddenly had to stop

because they realized

that there was something
strange in the peat

and it looked like a human body.

He was so well preserved.

His hands, they were very fine

and his fingers, you
could see the fingerprints;

they were very
delicate and very clear.

The skin was as if its, well,
he was just from yesterday.

But this man had not
met a peaceful end.

He had been brutally murdered.

His skull had been
cracked and his throat slit.

The first thing we could see

was that he had a cut,
ear to ear across the throat.

It even went through
the esophagus

and, uh, left a big gap also

between the third and
the fourth vertebrae.

That, of course,
must have killed him

but there were also other signs.

He had received a powerful
blow to his right temple

and, uh, which caused
the skull to crack.

It was clear his attackers
had gone to great lengths

to ensure he was dead.

Was it possible they had
hunted him down and killed him

because they thought
he was bewitched

or possessed by demons?

A motive like that would explain

the ferocity with which
he had been slaughtered.

If they feared him so much

they would have
taken no chances.

They cracked his skull

then followed up with
a knife to the throat.

A postmortem conducted
just after he was found in 1952

revealed a startling clue
that meant nothing at the time.

Today, it may explain
the details of his death.

A microscopic examination of
his stomach contents revealed

that his last meal had
been contaminated by ergot.

We were very lucky to
have a rather big amount

of stomach content
from the Grauballe Man.

And it showed a huge
composition of cereals and wheat

and small fragments
of bone from pork.

And during the analysis, they
found a huge amount of ergot.

These two jam jars contain what
is left of his stomach contents.

Ergot was clearly present.

But the early test
had not indicated

whether the ergot alkaloids...

The toxins produced
by the fungus...

Had been absorbed by his body.

Only that evidence
would definitively prove

that Grauballe Man had
been exhibiting the symptoms

of ergot poisoning... the
convulsions and hallucinations

that might have
led to his murder.

We don't know whether
they had reached the gut wall

there to be absorbed
into the blood stream

and transported to the brain

and have their effects
symptomatically.

Obviously we
couldn't determine that

from looking at these
things microscopically

but this is where we
need chemical analysis.

The team was granted permission
to perform the necessary tests

on a tiny, precious piece of
Grauballe Man's gut lining.

Any traces of
the ergot alkaloids

would mean that the toxins
had made it into his bloodstream

and that he most likely
would have been suffering

from the effects
of ergot poisoning.

To his peers, he would
have been exhibiting

the same bizarre symptoms
witnessed much later in Salem.

The test, while
simple, was a long shot.

Could the traces
of ergot alkaloids

be found 2,000 years
after the man had died?

A process known
as chromatography

was used to split the various
chemicals from the sample

into a tiny ladder
of colored bars.

The results were then
compared to a similar preparation

from a modern sample of ergot.

If the ergot alkaloids had
been absorbed into the gut

they would show up as
light-blue markers on the paper.

So here's the chromatogram
from the gut extracts

and we have got at
least one compound here

giving a bluey color

and we know that there
some alkaloids from ergot

that give this color
with this reagent.

That would fit, basically

with at least one
component of ergot

surviving these
2,000 years, or...

Possibly.

Or a compound related

to what we find in ergot.

Yes, that's true.

And as extra evidence of that

when we have used

another spray reagent on this

we do find that we have
alkaloids in this area.

So certainly there
are alkaloids...

So there are definitely
alkaloids there.

The presence of ergot alkaloids

means the poisons had
entered his bloodstream.

The fact that this
alkaloid was absorbed

into the gut lining itself

would suggest that he would
have had that symptomology...

Fitting, convulsing
and behaving in a way

that may well have
prompted his compatriots

to assume possession,
bewitchment

or something of that sort

and therefore to
want him executed.

Forensic science,
2,000 years after the fact

had provided a possible motive

for the Grauballe
Man's brutal murder.

It also offered chemical
evidence to support

Linnda Caporael's
theory that ergot poisoning

had for centuries been
misinterpreted as bewitchment.

Linnda was building
a persuasive case.

Her inspiration from LSD
had been well supported

by her findings from
the Salem trial records

and now the Grauballe Man

had provided chemical
evidence of ergot poisoning.

But what she still needed
was unambiguous proof

that ergot could ravage
an entire community.

Her big break was a modern one

and came from an
unlikely source...

A book stall at a local market.

Just by chance I found a book.

It was about a case in France

where the entire village

had also been afflicted
with ergot poisoning.

Like a medieval plague

stalking through the towns
and villages of Europe

a strange malady

that sends people mad has
hit Pont St. Esprit, in France.

The streets are as quiet

as the death that
threatens its inhabitants.

And the cause, poisoned bread
from this deserted baker's shop.

It happened in August 1951

when an unsuspecting baker

used a sackful of
contaminated flour.

200 people were afflicted
by a mysterious disease.

Many required hospitalization.

And in the weeks that
followed, some got so bad

they were carted off
to psychiatric asylums.

My husband went to the bakery

to get a little more bread,
because we didn't have enough.

The first thing that
happened, we started to be sick

and to have stomach cramps.

For everybody it
was the same thing:

You couldn't catch a wink,
you couldn't get to sleep.

I was working at
the mayor's office

and in the morning,
when I arrived

no one... no one
spoke of anything else.

Then, during the day

we heard about a
man who had a rifle

and he wanted to shoot
at anything that moved

because he thought... he
was having hallucinations.

Doctors and scientists

were brought in from
every major city in the area.

Ambulances were commandeered

and the mayor's office

became the emergency
headquarters for the town.

This original film footage
from the outbreak shows

the same violent convulsions
that had been recorded in Salem.

Victims described the same
pin-pricking sensations...

Like thousands of insects
crawling under the skin...

And once again,
terrifying hallucinations.

In Pont St. Esprit,
Linnda had found

the first-person accounts
of the nightmare visions

that for centuries had been
interpreted as bewitchment.

Oh, snakes... I'm frightened
of snakes, especially snakes.

I kept thinking that there
was a snake in my bed

so I would say to my aunt

"Look, Auntie, I think
there is a snake in my bed!"

There were monkeys, bears,
all sorts of things like that

and tigers, which would
come into my bedroom.

Not to be able to fall
asleep is just horrible.

The sick had to be
strapped to their beds

for their own protection.

They were plagued by
visions of fire, wild animals

and blood dripping
from the ceilings.

In order to escape
from these animals

they would open up the
windows and jump out.

And there was a lady
who was in hospital

and she was about 75 years old

and she opened her window,
and suddenly she leapt out

but she didn't die.

You see, her nightdress
got caught on a vine...

A creeping vine.

That's what saved her.

But in the end she did die
from the bread poisoning.

She was not the only one.

The poisoning
continued to take its toll

as doctors and scientists
searched for a cause.

The town was rocked by the news

that at least four
others had died.

I had some friends who had
come to stay at our house.

We'd eaten just
a little, you know.

Then they... they got sick, too

because they'd eaten the
same bread, in my house

this cursed bread.

They left here, and
later both of them died.

They got sick... and
both of them died...

The husband and the wife.

As the number of dead
increased, so did the sense of panic.

People wanted answers.

Chemical tests had been
ordered in Marseilles.

But rumors were spreading
that the town's bread supply

had been laced with
arsenic or mercury.

Finally they got their answer.

The sickness was
caused by ergot poisoning.

But the scientific
result was not enough

to silence all
echoes of witchcraft.

Even midway through
the 20th century

some insisted on a
supernatural explanation.

They believed the bakery
was possessed by the Devil

and called in a bishop
to exorcise the premises.

Had the events in France

occurred in the 1600s
instead of the 1900s

I suspect every house
in the... in the village

would have been exorcised.

If religion provides
an explanation...

if the idea that there's a devil

and that that devil is the thing

that is the cause of... these
completely extraordinary events

then an exorcism seems to me

like a perfectly reasonable
thing to expect people to do.

Just as in Salem

the fear and hysteria
had led to actions

that to us seem
naive and foolish.

And there was one
more ironic connection

between the French
tragedy and the Salem trials.

It was the tale of a dog

that had eaten
contaminated bread.

The dog began running
around in ever-widening circles

and began gnashing on rocks

and broke off teeth as he
was chewing on these rocks

and his mouth was bleeding.

Finally the dog died, blood
caked around his mouth.

It was just a ghastly
account of a dog

and... that was, um... it
was an incredible moment

because suddenly it made
sense of one of the events in Salem

that had bothered
me for a long time.

The French dog had
a parallel in Salem.

A "witch cake," a piece of bread

soaked in the urine
of one of the sick girls

had been fed to a dog to test if
it, too, would become bewitched.

Hours later, the
first accusations

of witchcraft were made.

Until that point the lid had
been kept on witchcraft.

People had been denying
it, rejecting the idea

that witchcraft
could be the cause

but that experiment
was the turning event.

And if that dog in Salem

behaved anything
like that dog in France

it's very easy to see how
suddenly people decide:

"This is witchcraft, and
that's the explanation."

The test had been made
and the test had confirmed it.

For centuries people have
turned to the supernatural

to explain what
frightens them most.

When communities
were struck down

with a horrific illness
that had no known cause

it was witchcraft that
became the scapegoat.

Now the real devil behind many
cases of supposed bewitchment

may finally have been found.

The blame can be
shifted from witches

to ergot, the fungus from which

the hallucinogenic
drug LSD is derived.

Its poisons are so powerful

they can induce the hideous
symptoms that time and again

have triggered brutal
executions throughout the world.

Gallows Hill in Salem

is the spot where 19
innocent men and women

were hanged for witchcraft.

Their deaths now seem

particularly
senseless and tragic.

When I reflect upon
this event at Salem

one of the things I
wonder about is...

would things have been different

had people known that there
was such a thing as food poisoning?

Had they known more,
had they understood better

would all of this
have simply not been

part of history as we know it

but part of that
daily, day-to-day life

that doesn't become
noted in history books?

It's a desolate
area in many ways;

it must have been
at that point in time.

I can imagine...
children... even dogs...

I can imagine babies crying,
so that there is this place

where normal life meets up

with life at its most
abnormal and strange

and... can imagine people
feeling self-righteous

people feeling that they have
freed the community of danger.

And in a sense I'm...

I'm glad to see that
there's a baseball field

and a playground
within sight... of here...

A place where there's life
in sight of this place of death.

Of the past at PBS Online.

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