This short video provides some background knowledge of the events leading up to the Salem Witchcraft Trials of 1692. When young women began to have “fits” and behaved strangely, Puritan doctors deemed that there was no medical reason for their ailments, so they must be under a witch’s possession. Their symptoms included seizures, hallucinations, pain where they would contort their bodies into weird positions, screaming and acts of rage, and even stillness where they would not move or flinch for extended periods of time. Panic ensued when these afflictions were spreading to other girls in the town as well. Mass hysteria, otherwise called mass conversion disorder or mass psychogenic illness today, seems like the most logical explanation for their afflictions.
If you would like to read more about the disorder and the symptoms, you can click here.
