Does Ergot Poisoning Explain the Salem Witch Trials?

Alie Ward says ergot poisoning is unlikely to explain the Salem witch trials. A 2000 article in the Journal of Clinical Toxicology, titled Witchcraft or Mycotoxin? The Salem Witch Trials, weighed the evidence pro and con and concluded that ergotism explains little of what went on in colonial Salem. The events have been chalked up to impressionable teens following trends.

Ergot is a fungal infection of rye and other grains. Poisoning can cause muscle spasms, convulsions, states of mania, hallucinations similar to LSD dosings, bleeding, miscarriage, and a feeling that the limbs are engulfed in flames. The witch trials of Salem, Massachusetts happened in the 1690s. 200 people were accused of using the devil's magic, and 20 were executed. Nearly 300 years later, a theory arose that people suffering the effects of suspected witches were actually overtaken by the grain fungus, and grain rot spread as the golden explanation. Academics later pored over research and, using tree ring data, brought into doubt the weather conditions that would have supported a rye outbreak of ergot. The girls afflicted were older than typical ergot victims, symptoms changed depending on the audience, and they had no lingering symptoms. A delightfully casual bullet point in the paper read: a few cows died.