The Middle Ages were the time of woe and nothing extravagant ever happened during this time. During the dark ages there were multiple diseases and ergotism was one of them. Ergotism played a role in the Salem witch trials during the Middle Ages. We Americans today are extremely fortunate to live a free, peaceful and comfortable life. We are surrounded in a clean environment with little to no trash. We receive treatment for different diseases so that we can stay healthy. Doctors in America today are well educated and care about our well-being. Young Americans today have the choice to work, if they do they are treated with respect and can only work a certain number of hours by law. Americans of today's generation eat food of equal quality. Linnda R. Caporale, now a professor at Renasselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, has examined several aspects to demonstrate that ergotism played a role in the Salem witch trials. In his research, “Ergotism: The Satan Loosed in Salem,” he examined growing up conditions in the Dark Ages. He states that the Atlantic coast grass from Virginia to New Earth was and still is wild rye. Wild rye is a host in which ergot can grow. Settlers at the time were unhappy with wild rye because it made their livestock sick with unknown diseases. In his research he also states that ergot grew in the New World before the arrival of the Puritans. Rye was relied upon and was a well-established crop in New England by the 1640s. Spring sowing was necessary to grow rye, but the winter period made autumn sowing fruitless. Caporael also took care of the threshing. The rye sowing period was April, the harvest took place in August but the wheat was stored in granaries before being threshed during the cold season. Threshing occurred before the Puritans only celebrated the holiday, Thanksgiving. The girls' symptoms appeared in 1691. In your research you also mention the location. As stated at the beginning, Ergot grows in moist, cold environments. The western part of Salem Village, the residence Putnam inherited and where most of the defendants and accusers lived, was swampy meadows. These marshy meadows were valuable farmland for settlers in the Middle Ages. The area was said to be contaminated. In the western part of the village of Salem not only did the accused and accusers live, but the defenders of the accused also lived there. This was the second reason Linnda Caporael explains why ergotism played a role in the