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Salem Witch Was A Serious Case Of Mass Hysteria

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Hysteria During the salem Witch Trials in February 1692 and May 1693 there was a serious case of mass Hysteria. It started when a group of young girls were seen dancing in the woods and claimed to be possessed by the devil, and accused several other women in the town of practicing witchcraft (MacGowan, Douglas). At this time in the village many people had uncontrollable emotion because they were scared of the people that were accused of being witches, and of someone accusing them of being a witch. During this time of mass Hysteria if you were accused of being a witch, or practicing witchcraft you were going to be hung. The people of Salem during this time we're not doing anything because if you were seen doing something considered suspicious you were going to be characterized as a witch. This case of mass Hysteria in Salem became …show more content…

Many of the different ideas of what Hysteria is came from other countries across the US like Greece, France, and some from Italy. A Greek physician provided a good description of hysteria, many of the people in Greece thought that the people had epilepsy, but the physician clearly distinguished hysteria from epilepsy (Tasca, Cecilia). “ During the first ten centuries of Christianity, with medical thought stagnating under the authoritarian influence of Galenic concepts, most cases of hysteria were probably mistaken for various bodily diseases. During the Middle Ages, as the attitude toward sickness changed from naturalistic to demonotheologic, many cases of hysteria, and undoubtedly of organic disease too, were interpreted as manifestations of witchcraft” (Hysteria). During the Salem Witch trials there was a huge case of mass Hysteria because of the many people that were accused of practicing witchcraft. Many of the people throughout the world thought that hysteria was epilepsy, but because of lots of extensive research it was proven that these cases were Hysteria (North, Carol

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