Thanks for commenting! Other countries might definitely have handled it differently, yes. Especially countries which retained significant rural populations to this day and still have widespread folk-healing traditions, which the "educated" people either dismiss entirely or decide there must be some interesting property to an herb they just haven't scientifically demonstrated yet.
China did have a sorcery scare in 1768, though, and interestingly, one of the main fears was that sorcerers were stealing people's souls (one wonders just how many countries have Dementors). It was a relatively short-lived incident, but still quite interesting. (It seemed to be connected to tensions with the Qing regime - queue-clipping wasn't just a symbolic or magical attack, but could get you in trouble with the authorities because it was a government-mandated hairstyle - and economic stresses. Some of the main targets were wandering poor monks, notably.)
Re: And elsewhere...
China did have a sorcery scare in 1768, though, and interestingly, one of the main fears was that sorcerers were stealing people's souls (one wonders just how many countries have Dementors). It was a relatively short-lived incident, but still quite interesting. (It seemed to be connected to tensions with the Qing regime - queue-clipping wasn't just a symbolic or magical attack, but could get you in trouble with the authorities because it was a government-mandated hairstyle - and economic stresses. Some of the main targets were wandering poor monks, notably.)