by Colin Swanson

Euripides, the renowned ancient Greek playwright, put forth the thought, "the devil when he purports any evil against man, first perverts his mind." If we take Euripides' idea and apply it to the infamous witch trials of The Crucible, then yes, the devil was at work in Salem, but not in the form of black magic. His agents were alive and well in the form of madness among certain members of the townsfolk. Mental illness has forever plagued mankind, but until relatively recently, illness of the mind was not even understood as a concept by the general public. It was not until before the beginning of the last century that mental illness was recognized and began to be diagnosed. Today, psychologists know of hundreds of different mental disorders with highly specific symptoms and characteristics. In the period in which...