The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1894-02-01
sYMPATHYs GREAT POWER.
Historic Mental Delusions Recalled by a
Recent Case.


The recent outbreak of a nervous
malady in a tenement in the italian
quarter in western city. by which
large portion of the persons living in
the house seemed to become suddenly
afflicted with a mild kind of st. Vitus
dance, suggests the wonderful power
OF sympathy and imitation upon GER
tain Compartments. of which all med
ical men are well aware. History
abounds with such instances, although
it is now many years since any such
outbreak obtained any very wide preva-
lence.
Italy was the scene of one of the
most famous of these, where for some
centuries there was an epidemic of
dancing, which was supposed to be the
only remedy for a mania of disease in
duced by the alleged poisonous sting
of the tarantula, or spider. So wide
spread was this that it passed into his
tory under the specific name "tarant-
ism" and the dance which was thought
to be the cure for it has ever since been
known as the 'tarantella."
The intelligent and learned men of
those days were won't to deride the no.
ton of any but the ignorant super
stitious being susceptible to the mania
until one of them, the bishop of Fo-
ligno, found that what he had believed
to be mere delusion or fraud in others,
has proved to be grave reality. IIav-
ing allowed himself, by way of joke,
to be bitten by tarantula, he could
obtain no other cure than by being
compelled to dance, through the influ-
ence of the music of the tarantella.
1t was fully ascertained that the bite
Of the tarantula was not at all poison
Gus, and the bishop was persuaded of
this when he undertook the joke
Still, the idea having at length taken
possession of his mind that possibly it
might be poisonous after all, he be-
came victim of this imaginary poi
son. From the state of public opinion
in that age it has been recorded that
even the most decided sceptics, incapa-
BILE of guarding themselves against the
recollections of what had been pre-
sented to the eye, which had been ridi-
culed, and which was in itself inert in
it's effects.
Against the imaginary effect pro
duced by the tarantula's bite or by the
bite of the sufferers, neither youth nor
old age afforded any protection, so
that even old men of ninety threw
aside their crutches at the sound of the
tarantella, and, as if some magic 20.
ton restorative of youth and vigor
were flowing through their veins,
Joined the most extravaganza dancers.
Fernandino, an eminent medical au-
thority of the time, recorded the case OF
a boy five years old who was seized
with the dancing mania in consequence
of the bite of the tarantula, and what
is almost past belief were it not sup
ported by the testimony of so credible
an eye witness, even deaf people were
not exempt from the disorder, so potent
in its effects was the very sight of those
affected, even without the exhilaratior
caused by music.
The powers of sympathy were also
strikingly manifested in 1887 at Holder
u
a mouse into the bosom of another girl
who had a great dread of mice. The
girl was instantly thrown into a fit
and continued to suffer from the mos
violent commissions for twenty-foul
hours, On the following day three
girls were seized in the same manner
and on the second day six more were
attacked.
The alarm became so great that the
whole works, where from two hun
bred to three hundred hands were EN-
ployed, were totally stopped, and the
idea prevailed that the plague haG
been introduced among them from
opening a bag of cotton. Fourteen
more were seized on the two following
days, making in all twenty-foul
actual victims of this excitement o.
terror in sport. OF this number TWEEN
I ty-one were young women, two girls
less than ten years of age, and one
man, who had been much fatigued by
holding the girls.
The symptoms were so violent thai
it required from four the five persons
to hold patients to prevent them from
tearing out their hair or from dashine
their heads against the walls or floor
But when the public became assured
that the complaint was merely nerv
GUS disorder, not introduced by any
poison from the cotton bale and easily
! cured, no other person was affected
although previous to that several per
sons had been so afflicted even whei
several miles from the scene of excite
ment, merely from hearing reports o
the symptoms manifested in Others
Dancing was found to be the most et
ficacious remedy.
The effects of sympathy and imita
ton and excessive excitement mani
tested at camp meetings in this coun
try show that with all our boosted ad
vancement in civilization beyond thos
who inhabited Europe during the mid
die ages, the human mind is still sus
ceptible to these strange mental delu
sions and physical manifestations, ex
cited entirely through the power o
sympathy and imitation in those VIII
place themselves in circumstances ia
vorable for their development.-N. Y
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