What famous cases of extreme or "crazy" behaviors in the world's history can now be attributed to some sort of environmental toxin? ie. Salem witch trials may have been induced by a mold on the wheat at that time; the ancient Romans were nuts because they were being exposed to lead through their water

-- Kimberly Jennings (rowan2804@home.com), April 01, 2001

Answers

Undoubtedly there have been times when environmental toxins have caused relatively widepread mental health problems, but I wouldn't be inclined to accept uncritically either of the examples you have given here. Certainly they are not accepted by the vast majority of scholarly historians.

There are fairly well-established socio-economic reasons for the Salem situation (see, e.g., Boyer, P. & Nissenbaum, S. (1974). Salem Possessed. Harvard U. Press). Consider -- if the town's population had really ingested large amounts of ergot, or whatever, no one would have been capable of holding even sham trials. What is more, the trials and executions in Salem were actually relatively mild compared to what had gone on some places in Europe previously -- and no one I know of has ever suggested wheat-mold "explanations" there. For a very interesting revisionist view of the European witch trials, see Cohn, N. (1993). Europe's Inner Demons (rev. ed.) (Pimlico), esp. chap. 10: "How the Great Witch-Hunt Did Not Start".

Similar considerations apply to the "case" of Roman lead poisoning. Perhaps there was *some*, but do you really think that a bunch of people suffering the effects of advanced lead poisoning could have continued to effectively run the largest, most complex empire the world had ever seen? Legal codes, government and judicial bureaucracy, international military campaigns, etc. Doesn't seems likely. True, they had a few nutty emperors in a relatively short span, but Marcus Aurelius (to name but one) doesn't strike me as someone driven mad by lead poisoning. Nor do the other Stoics. Nor do the philosophers Lucretius and Plotinus. Nor does the physician Galen. In short, what lead poisoning there might have been in ancient Rome doesn't seem to have had much impact on the general level of intellectual achievment.

-- Christopher Green (christo@yorku.ca), April 01, 2001.

Hi Kimberly, I'm wondering what kind of literature you didn't read as a child? remember the mad hatter? Check out a copy of Alice in Wonderland and begin there. Best, David

-- david clark (doclark@yorku.ca), April 02, 2001.