Did they eat ergot infected bread? Could have been a bad case of St. Anthony’s Fire, ergotism.
that’s kinda what i was thinking, along those lines- tainted food- bad storage practices- perhaps drinking out of contaminated water sources- seems weird that surrounding towns didn’t have the problem at that time too- sounds like it was localized- and could well have been due to something contaminated-
I remember reading a book for a class when I was in high school. It must have been titled “St. Anthony’s Fire,” but I’m not sure.
The book told the story of a town in France where something similar happened.
People started acting crazy and going crazy.
One guy was running around town naked. He was caught and was tied down with leather straps. The man chewed thru the leather straps and escaped, continuing to run around town.
The cause was believed to be a local mill....the kind of mill that turns wheat into flour. The wheat at the bottom of the pile had a fungus growing on it that had properties similar to present-day LSD. When this fungus-infested wheat was milled, the flour was made into bread and people “tripped out” after eating the bread.
I wonder if this was what happened in Black River Falls, Wisconsin, although the situation there in Wisconsin was far worse than what happened to the town in France.
I have wondered for years if a similar situation happened in and around Salem, Massachusetts in the late 17th century, leading to the infamous witchcraft trials.
Did they eat ergot infected bread?
Behold the power of cheese.
Quite possible, but the name Black River Falls hints at more fundamental causes.