I got all kinds of commentary on my medicinal healing remarks. Clarification is obviously called for. I said: "...Just about everybody used herbs medicinally back then... I have read nothing that suggests this was regarded with suspicion. The victims in this case were charged with using their "spectral shapes" to torment adolescent girls and, in a few cases, women and men." A number of people called me on this and quite rightly so. I misspoke. I did not mean to imply that herbalists and witches (Wise women) were not persecuted for their activities. European history is rife with this sort of thing. A prohibitive religion that distrusted women together with the rise of a (male) medical establishment drove the herbal healers (mostly women) underground, when they did not openly burn them at the stake. These are historical facts and I do not dispute them. In my commentary, however, I was not referring to the town "witch" who mixes and dispenses potions to the rest of the citizenry. These characters, who have practically become stereotypes of "witches" in our day, were certainly regarded with suspicion at the very least. I was talking about a specific situation-- Salem Village. The "herbal medicine" I was discussing was the ordinary sort of medicine that must have been practiced by every family in a rural setting where doctors were hard to come by. My point was that I found no evidence that suspicion was cast on this very ubiquitous form of medicine. It is not even mentioned in the examination records. What are mentioned are pinching, biting, suckling familiars, etc.-- "evidence" culled from the imaginations of some highly disturbed people. Sincerely, Jean Ely