Photos Praying to St. Vitus
Mass Hysteria
Ivan Crozier, a lecturer in the Science Studies Unit at the University of Edinburgh, told Discovery News that he "agrees completely" with Waller's conclusion. "His cultural explanation, combined with a contextualized view of the conditions in which people lived at the time on the Rhine and Mosel, is very convincing and is superior to the arguments about ergot, which is a compound like LSD," Crozier said. "Ergot gave people visions, not energy to dance," he added. Crozier is a world authority on yet another mass hysteria epidemic: koro. Since at least 300 B.C., plagues of koro -- an irrational male fear that one's genitals have been stolen or are fatally shrinking into the body -- have swept through various parts of the world, particularly throughout Africa and Asia. Most recently, a 1967 outbreak, documented in the Singapore Medical Journal, caused over 1,000 men to use pegs and clamps in hopes of protecting themselves from the gripping fear. "In both cases we see cultural issues impacting on collective behavior," Crozier said, explaining that preexisting superstitions, fears and beliefs surrounding both koro and the dancing epidemic led to group beliefs turning into "collective action." Waller explained that victims often go into an involuntary trance state, fueled by psychological stress and the expectation of succumbing to an altered state. "Thus, in groups subject to severe social and economic hardship, trance can be highly contagious," he said. More Deadly Dancing, And Laughing At least seven other outbreaks of the dancing epidemic occurred in medieval Europe, mostly in the areas surrounding Strasbourg. In more recent history, a major outbreak occurred in Madagascar in the 1840's, according to medical reports that described "people dancing wildly, in a state of trance, convinced that they were possessed by spirits." Perhaps the most unusual documented case of mass psychogenic illness was the Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic of 1962. A paper published the following year in the Central African Journal of Medicine described what happened. Triggered by a joke among students at a Tanzania boarding school, young girls began to laugh uncontrollably. At first there were spurts of laughter, which extended to hours and then days. The victims, virtually all female, suffered pain, fainting, respiratory problems, rashes and crying attacks, all related to the hysterical laughter. Proving the old adage that laughter can be contagious, the epidemic spread to the parents of the students as well as to other schools and surrounding villages. Eighteen months passed before the laughter epidemic ended. Curing the Mind According to medical epidemiologist Timothy Jones, an assistant clinical professor of preventative medicine at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, who also reported an incident of hysteria in Belgium following soft-drink consumption, "Outbreaks of psychogenic illness are likely to be more common than is currently appreciated, and many go unrecognized." Jones recommends that physicians treating such problems "attempt to separate persons with illness associated with the outbreak," conduct tests to rule out other causes, monitor and provide oxygen for hyperventilation, attempt to minimize the individual's anxiety, notify public health authorities and seek to assure patients that, while their symptoms "are real…rumors and reports of suspected causes are not equivalent to confirmed results." Aside from their medical interest, Waller believes such epidemics, particularly those from past centuries, are "of immense historical value." He said the dancing plague "tells us much about the extraordinary supernaturalism of late medieval people, but it also reveals the extremes to which fear and irrationality can lead us." He added, "Few events in my view so clearly show the extraordinary potentials of the human mind." Related Links: Jennifer Viegas' blog: Born Animal |
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