A Fever in Salem: A New Interpretation of the New England Witch Trials [Hardcover]

Laurie Winn Carlson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 20, 1999 | ISBN-10: 1566632536 | ISBN-13: 978-1566632539 | Edition: 1ST

This new interpretation of the New England Witch Trials offers an innovative, well-grounded explanation of witchcraft's link to organic illness. While most historians have concentrated on the accused, Laurie Winn Carlson focuses on the afflicted. Systematically comparing the symptoms recorded in colonial diaries and court records to those of the encephalitis epidemic in the early twentieth century, she argues convincingly that the victims suffered from the same disease. A unique blend of historical epidemiology and sociology. --Katrina L. Kelner, Science. Meticulously researched...the author marshalls her arguments with clarity and persuasive force. --New Yorker

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The 1692 Salem witch trials have made an indelible impression on our national conscience. Investigations into this strange moment in colonial history, when 20 accused witches were executed and over a hundred imprisoned because of their "supernatural" infliction of townsfolk and animals, traditionally focus on the accused. In A Fever in Salem: A New Interpretation of the New England Witch Trials, Laurie Winn Carlson focuses instead on the afflicted, examining potential natural explanations for their typical symptoms, which included hallucinations, convulsions, psychosis, and frequently death. She provocatively concludes that the witch hunts of New England were a "response to unexplained physical and neurological behaviors resulting from an epidemic of encephalitis."

Winn Carlson, an independent scholar based in Washington state, has thoroughly familiarized herself with conventional explanations for the event, which range from the Freudian female neurosis to the sociological community-based socioeconomic problems. In eight methodologically composed chapters, she convincingly illustrates how these fail to account for many relevant facts. Instead, by contrasting the symptoms of 17th-century Massachusetts victims with those in other colonies, in Europe, and in more modern times, Winn Carlson supports her claim for an organic cause. A statistical appendix, maps, and chronology further bolster her theory. Academically rigorous without sounding pedantic, A Fever in Salem offers a refreshing interpretation to both the scholar and the general reader of an event that continues to fascinate. --Bertina Loeffler Sedlack

From Publishers Weekly

Members of nearly every major school of historical analysis have taken a crack at explaining the Salem witch trials, from Freudian scholars (who posit mass hysteria) to Marxists (class conflict over property), from feminists (hatred of women) to more ecologically minded historians (a hallucinogenic ergot fungus on grain). In this innovative new study, an independent scholar focuses on the physical symptoms of "possession"Aconvulsions, hallucinations, distorted language, paralysisAwhich are precisely congruent with those of encephalitis lethargica. Carlson (On Sidesaddles to Heaven) supports her case with an impressive array of sources, including legal records of the trials, accounts of Puritan religious and medical beliefs, histories of witchcraft and of mental illness, scientific studies of plagues and Oliver Sacks's Awakenings (which dealt with the victims of the encephalitis epidemic of 1916-30). She never "explains" the event in its entirety, leaving open the possibility of further analysis of the public, religious and legal response to these phenomena. Discussing other possible historical and cultural ramifications of encephalitis symptoms, Carlson provocatively suggests that the disease may have inspired the Sleeping Beauty folk tale and been at the root of some Christian mystical experiences. While her use of radical psychiatrist Thomas Szasz's work to analyze cross-cultural "epidemics of mental illness" and her superficial reading of feminist analyses are not up to the high standard of the rest of the book, her theory, though ultimately impossible to prove, is persuasive.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 215 pages
• Publisher: Ivan R Dee; 1ST edition (July 20, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566632536
• ISBN-13: 978-1566632539
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,130,729 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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27 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The Salem Witch Hunt was not that simple, November 26, 1999

By 

K. Fischer (Olmsted Township, Ohio) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Fever in Salem: A New Interpretation of the New England Witch Trials (Hardcover)

In the harsh winter months of 1692 several young girls in Salem Village began to experience violent physical seizures. The community responded with unsuccessful prayer and fasting. A local physician soon diagnosed that the presence of evil, not physical illness, was responsible for these inexplicable fits. In the next seven months nineteen accused witches were hanged in Salem. Another, Giles Corey, was pressed to death. Two more of the alleged witches died while being held in jail. In the expansive annals of American History this incident at Salem can appear relatively insignificant. It has nevertheless generated an enormous amount of interest, and a large body of historiographic literature. The terms Salem, witch-hunt, and witch trials, have literally become a part of our regular vocabulary. Relative to this interest in the Salem phenomenon the historian John Demos noted that popular interest in the subject of Salem is so "badly out of proportion to its actual historical significance," that "perhaps the sane course for the future would be silence." Laurie Winn Carlson has obviously not taken Demos' advice. Her new work, A Fever in Salem, is the most recent addition to this enormous body of work. Unfortunately her work, while creative and unique, does not make any meaningful contribution to the aforementioned rich body of literature. Taking a page from Linnda Caporael's previous attempt to identify a physical pathology as a cause for the Salem phenomenon, Ms. Carlson presents a theory that the witch trials were the result of an epidemic of tick-borne encephalitis lethargica at Salem. Ms. Caporael, in the early 1970's, created somewhat of a stir by proposing that a fungus ("wheat ergot"), was growing on the rye grain grown in Salem Village. When consumed, this fungus resulted in the onset of hallucinations similar to those associated with the ingestion of LSD. And therefore this infected rye grain was responsible for the hallucinations and seizures experienced by the young girls. Now comes Laurie Winn Carlson, attempting to identify another culprit. In support of her thesis Ms. Carlson explained how the symptoms experienced by the young girls in Salem (hallucinations, hyperactivity, uncontrollable bodily movements, and partial paralysis) were similar to those associated with the "hyperkinetic" form of the disease. Unfortunately, there is little else to justify her conclusion. In the course of this work Ms. Carlson does acknowledge the more conventional historical analyses relative to the Salem events. Previously, historians identified a number of economic, social, and psychological factors, intersecting at a unique time and place in history, resulting in an individual and community hysteria at Salem. As those works indicate, Salem was a community in crisis. The leading institution was a repressive Puritan Church incorporating a submissive role for females and a genuine belief in the presence of Satan. In addition, Salem experienced economic division associated with the introduction of mercantile capitalism into an agrarian society. Such economic factionalism resulting in tension characterized by heightened competition and inevitable jealousy. Add to this an ongoing threat of Indian violence, and it becomes clear why Salem was a community ripe for the tragic events of 1692. Even in the face of such an expansive body of historiography, Carlson maintains her thesis. Carlson's refusal to accept the validity of such previous work appears based on her own apparently unwavering need to identify a specific explanation for the physical symptoms experienced by the girls. Laurie Winn Carlson's A Fever in Salem simply fails to make a valuable contribution to the body of Salem historiography. The author's attempt to reduce a complex phenomenon to some isolated tick bites is untenable. Even if the original accusing girls were afflicted with encephalitis lethargica, that does not explain the community-wide contagion of hysteria that Salem subsequently experienced. Indeed, as was the previous case with the wheat ergot theory, a hypothesis based on an epidemic of tick-borne encephalitis cannot eliminate the myriad factors that, taken as a whole, caused the Salem witch-hunt. Reading A Fever in Salem will hopefully pique the reader's interest in learning more about the Salem incident. Should that be the case, there is a wealth of fine historical literature, including the work of John Demos, Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, Carol Karlsen, Elizabeth Reis and Peter Hoffer, among others, available to educate and enlighten the curious.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Most Plausible Theory To Date, October 17, 2010

By 

Lillian37 (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Fever in Salem: A New Interpretation of the New England Witch Trials (Paperback)

This book introduces a new theory of why the Salem witch trials took place: encephalitis. An inflammation of the brain caused by a virus. Comparing this theory to others, namely ergot poisoning and psychological issues stemming from such a strict, closed-off society, encephalitis seems like the most plausible and probable cause. Neither ergo poisoning or psychological causes explain many of the symptoms and behavior of the afflicted people.

More of a medical than a history book, the author's very thorough research is easy to understand. A lot of myths are debunked. For instance, most people think that only teenage girls were afflicted with the strange symptoms, which isn't true. Infants, young children and older adults, as well as boys and men where afflicted and quite a few died, which is rarely discussed in other material about the Salem witch trials. It was the young women that were the accusers, which explains why research has been focused almost solely on them. Some strains of encephalitis affect preteen/teenage/young adult age groups more than infants or older adults.

Pockets of this kind of behavior was seen before 1692 in the New World which also lead to witch accusations. There were also much larger outbreaks in Europe that ended in the deaths of thousands of people accused as witches. The symptoms of encephalitis and the behavior of the accusers fit extremely well.

Not everyone believed that the effects of encephalitis were from an evil source. Depending on where you lived, certain aspects of this disease (not eating or drinking for long periods of time and not dying from it) was seen as a gift from God, that you were special. But in the Salem community it was believed to be from Satan. If you study the Puritan beliefs and way of living, you'll understand why.

Encephalitis isn't passed from human to human, it is passed to humans through mosquitoes or ticks, which explains why the entire population of Salem didn't become ill with the epidemic and only one or two people per household (or none) were affected. Encephalitis symptoms also change over time, which explains why more recent outbreaks haven't been as serious.

The accusations and executions suddenly ended in Salem in the fall of 1692, when the mosquitoes and ticks responsible for carrying the disease would have died due to the cold weather. It's also interesting to note that most of the people afflicted lived on the west side of Salem, close to the river and swamp that would have harbored mosquitoes during that spring and summer. There is no cure for encephalitis and in 17th century Salem there were no effective treatments. I found it fascinating.

10 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars fascinating and innovative look at witchcraft, December 2, 1999

By A Customer

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This review is from: A Fever in Salem: A New Interpretation of the New England Witch Trials (Hardcover)

Winn Carlson has found the facts behind Salem's horror but others may not like that. The witchcraft "industry" is alive and well in academia, where people have embraced the girlish hysteria stuff for decades. Time to rid those poor girls of their Freudian explanations. Thanks to Winn Carlson, the women are no longer seen as acting out or trying to get attention. The bird migration routes seem logical, and match up with the recent epidemic of encephalitis in New York City. This book is a must for someone who wants to look at history in a new way. Who knows how many other historical events can be explained scientifically by disease?