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

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