Interview with M.M. Drymon, Author, Seeks to Answer the Question: Did the Salem Witches of 1692 Have Lyme Disease?

Salem, MA, October 03, 2008 --(PR.com)-- In a recent interview the author of the controversial new book, Disguised As The Devil: A History Of Lyme Disease and Witch Accusations (Wythe Avenue Press, $24.95) answered questions about the theory that Lyme disease was the root cause for the Salem Witch Trials.

When asked:Why do you think that the Salem witches had Lyme disease? The author noted that she actually thinks that "the witches in New England were convenient scapegoats accused of creating the symptoms of Lyme disease and its co-infections that appeared in the afflicted." Some of the people who testified at the witch trials talked about having rashes on their skin. For example, the book notes that Jarvis Ring had “the print of the bite (of a woman) on the finger of his right hand. Mary Hortado was “bitten on both arms...the impression of the teeth being like a man’s teeth... were plainly seen by many.” The afflicted Godwin children developed red streaks on their bodies. Sam Wilkins had red marks like stabs of awl on his body. Dorcas Good had a deep red spot the size of a flea bite on her finger. Mary Walcut had the marks of teeth on her wrist. Abigail Williams had a mark like the print of an orange on her skin. One child in Connecticut had a deep red spot on her cheek when she died. Finding that "a bulls eye rash can look a lot like a bite mark", Drymon found that most of these afflicted people also developed neurological symptoms, like seizures, hallucinations, brain fog, and lethargy, as well as joint swellings. The Shattuck child, a little boy, seems to have developed bells palsy with one side of his face “drawne so aside as if they would never come to right againe.” "When coupled with the relapsing quality of the symptoms and a list of sick cows, horses, cats, and dogs," Drymon noted, " it looks like there was an epidemic of Lyme disease."

But didn’t they eat ergot on their bread? Drymon answered that "this is a popular theory that is often repeated and needs to be researched more thoroughly. Ergot infects wheat under damp wet conditions. When you look at data from tree ring growth, the lead up period to the witch trials was dry, a time of severe drought in New England. All these people, however, lived at the edge of an acorn-filled forest. There were also lots of deer, so many in fact, that towns in Massachusetts were appointing deer reeves to chase them out of their cornfields. Sounds like an environmental recipe for Lyme disease, similar to modern times."

Didn’t Lyme disease come over recently from Europe? Drymon explained that "this is a misreading of a recent study. After corresponding with one of the authors-the study does not say which way the exchange happened or exactly when, it was a statistical estimate. It can be proposed that the Lyme bacteria went from North America to Europe and suggest the date of 1492 as the beginning of the transfer. It makes sense that the bacteria would accompany the extraction of natural resources and other raw materials from the New World to Europe. This does not, however, preclude an accidental release of bacteria from Plum Island." The author does not claim to be knowledgeable about modern bio-weapons research.

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