Secrets of the Dead
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Part detective story, part true-life drama, long-running series explores some of the most iconic moments in history to debunk myths and shed new light on past events. Using the latest investigative techniques, forensic science and historical examination, it shatters accepted wisdom, challenges prevailing ideas, overturns existing hypotheses, spotlights forgotten mysteries, and ultimately rewrites history.
(Disease & Disaster) “The Witches Curse” poses a shocking new idea about the violent convulsions, delirium, and strange skin sensations that struck a group of young girls in 17th-century Massachusetts and inspired the infamous Salem Witch Trials. In 1692, 19 of the town’s residents were put to death because they were believed to have been witches. For hundreds of years, this tragedy was blamed on religious fanaticism, adolescent cruelty, and contagious hysteria. But these explanations failed to satisfy a “detective” who embarked on her own fact-finding mission. Was Salem’s Puritan community unwittingly living on bread infected by the fungus from which LSD is derived? Could toxic amounts of this fungus, known as ergot, be the real reason the accusatory teens endured psychotic episodes and saw blood dripping down their walls at night? And what clues could the 2,300-year-old corpse of a Danish murder victim possibly hold for Salem investigators? Tracking down historic outbreaks of ergot poisoning, Dr. Caporael compares its symptoms to those that plagued the girls in Salem, revealing a whole new side of this unsettling period. (UK/PBS 55 min)
