... ergot poisoning from bad rye bread (a plausible explanation if Rev. Parris was starving and without pay), which caused convulsions and hallucinations. However, the ergot theory only accounts for the first few girls to be "afflicted". Most of the girls may not have been genuinely sick, but found new power in a society where girls were controlled by their male relatives and confined in ... . Not only did Phip's chosen chief justice, William Stoughton, have no legal education, he had free reign over rulings. This was not helped by the fact that the entire judiciary system was corrupted by t...

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