Today in Salem: The judges are adding to their notes from yesterday’s trial. No more proof is needed to condemn Bridget Bishop, but the judges are still meticulous, recording everything.
Yesterday morning, six female prisoners were stripped naked so a group of other women and a male surgeon could examine them for witch marks. Three of the prisoners, including Bridget Bishop, were found to have abnormal outgrowths — an “odd excrescence” — of flesh in their private areas, “much like a teat.”
Witches were known to have teats, like skin tags, all over their bodies, and used them to suckle their familiars. The surgeon thought Bridget’s teat was highly suspicious, so at the end of the day they examined her again. The teat had disappeared, replaced by a bit of dry skin.
That was proof positive as far as the surgeon was concerned. But the group of women included an experienced midwife, who said the extra flesh was probably scar tissue from difficult birthing. Her opinion was in the minority, though, and the proof was duly noted.
LEARN MORE: What were Puritan doctors like?
The Puritans believed that all things were from God: good things like bountiful crops and summer rain, and bad things like disease and affliction. When bad things happened, it wasn’t necessarily because the person was sick. It was because they’d sinned and God was displeased. It could be:
- God was testing your faith.
- You’d sinned and made God angry.
- If a lot of people were sick, God was wreaking revenge for the collective sins of the society.
- Someone else was attacking you, often a “witch” in league with the Devil, or even Satan’s army of demons.
So, while a doctor tried to diagnose illness, he was also asked to find and explain the sin behind the affliction.
With that in mind, a doctor cared for the body so the minister could care for the soul. In fact, sometimes the doctors were the ministers. This could explain why doctors were so poorly trained in medical practices. There were no medical schools or programs in America. Instead, doctors practiced “feseke” (physick, or medicine) based on what they knew from British medicine, which was usually passed down through the decades and was sometimes obsolete.