Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1888-09-02
CURIOUS NERVOUS DISORDERS.
An Interesting Glass of Ahbections-Stssns
Contagious Manias.

An Interesting Glass of Affections-Stuhnse
Contagious NIsnias.
A curious incident is reported from
Wilkesbarre, Pa. One of the young
women employed in a silk mill at that
place was seized with an epileptic fit.
The other girls crowded round her,
alarmed and excited Suddenly" says
the account, Zone of them gave wild
shrek and fell over in violent mysteries.
The excitement increased, and in a
minute or so another young woman was
seized with hysteria. The girls were
now almost wild with nervous excite
ment, and one after another were seized
with hysteric commissions" Eighteen of
them were affected in this strange way,
and they all had to be sent homo after
medical aid had been summoned. The
case belongs to by no means uncom-
mon but very interesting class Of nervous
affections. Neuro mimesis, or nervous
mimicry, has been at the base of great
number of puzzling outbreaks, many of
which were at the time of their occur
renee attributed to supernatural causes.
In the Fifteenth century nun in a
German convent suddenly began to NEW
like a cat. In short time the infection
had spread until all the other nuns were
mewing in rivalry with her The new
ing epidemic was carried to other con-
vents, and for time the religious au-
thorities were in CONSERVATION. In the
same century strange biting mania de-
veloped in a convent, and soon all the
nuns were biting one another and all
who approached them. This outbreak
was cured by terrorism. A regiment of
soldiers was drawn up in the court of
the convent and the biting nuns were
informed that if they did not come to
their senses they would be flogged with
rods by the troops. The fear Of this
punishment had the desired effect. With
other epidemics of the same general
character, however, all remedies failed.
Of these was the SO called dancing
mania, when tens of thousands of people
went leaping, dancing and singing
through the streets in procession, aban-
doning business, domestic duties, every
thing, to indulge in this singular eccen-
tricity.i
The history of the Flagellants, who
walked in procession, each rank fogging
the one in front and being logged by the
one behind, is of the same order. This
epidemic spread until it had covered all
Germany and Italy and had invaded
France. Both the dancing and the
manias affected children as
well as grown people. Numbers of the
victims persisted miserably, for process
sicns were arranged to traverse the coun-
try, and this they did, wandering about
without any commissariat, trusting to
charity, until the nuisance grew SO form
liable that cities closed their gates
against the pilgrims and drove them'into
the waste, where thousands died of ex-
posture and privation.
Hecker, the historian of the epidemics
Of the middle ages, had curious theory
to account for them. They occurred in
the period of the Black Deatf., when
pestilence stalked over Europe and swept
away millions. Hecker held that the
plague was caused by certain changes in
the earth's magnetism, and to support
this he cited many reports of strange at
mospheric phenomena, foul odors arising
from the ocean and saturating whole
continents, and other indications Of alb
in the telluric conditions.
Hecker's hypothesis has not been &C
,epted by modern science, but his facts
Ire trustworthy. The extensive cpl
lemics of nervous mimicry which he
chronicles have certainly not been paral-
eled since the middle ages, and perhaps
We should look for the explanation of
his to the magnitude of the advance in
he standards of living and in the aver
sge of health. The most striking recent
Instance of nervous mimicry is tie case
If the Convulsionnaires of st. Madard,
many of whom were unquestionably
,ataleptics. With the spread of educa-
ion and a better regimen of diet the
endency to nervous epidennics has plainly
diminished. It is. however, by no means
as the Wilkesbarre episode,
,ited at the beginning Of this article,
hows. and as was proved by the occur
ence of similar outbreak among the
Urls in Brooklyn factory not long ago.
Today these strange affections are recog-
lized as neurotic, but the precise mode
# their dissemination is still an unsolved
,roblem.-New York Tribune.
How In Inaru a