William Griggs was a

doctor Doctor or The Doctor may refer to: Personal titles * Doctor (title), the holder of an accredited academic degree * A medical practitioner, including: ** Physician ** Surgeon ** Dentist ** Veterinary physician ** Optometrist *Other roles ** ...

Salem Village Danvers is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, located on the Danvers River near the northeastern coast of Massachusetts. The suburb is a fairly short ride from Boston and is also in close proximity to the renowned beaches of Glo ...

, Massachusetts. He is best known as the doctor who diagnosed the Salem Villagers as possessed, during the time of the

Salem witch trials The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. More than 200 people were accused. Thirty people were found guilty, 19 of whom w ...

. Griggs was in charge of diagnosing and determining how "much" of a witch they were. Griggs claimed that the "afflicted" girls were "under an Evil hand" (most likely referring to the

Devil A devil is the personification of evil as it is conceived in various cultures and religious traditions. It is seen as the objectification of a hostile and destructive force. Jeffrey Burton Russell states that the different conceptions of t ...

References

External links

* http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/saxon-salem/servlet/SaxonServlet?source=salem/texts/bios.xml&style=salem/xsl/dynaxml.xsl&chunk.id=b47&clear-stylesheet-cache=yes * http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/saxon-salem/servlet/SaxonServlet?source=salem/texts/names.xml&style=salem/xsl/dynaxml.xsl&group.num=all&mbio.num=mb47&clear-stylesheet-cache=yes Year of birth missing Year of death missing 17th-century American physicians Physicians from Massachusetts People of the Salem witch trials Witch hunters {{Salem-stub