506 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tendency probably existed ; but where there was a conscious impulse 

 toward the convulsions it could be restrained by most persons before 

 it had been yielded to too long. Dr. Blythe had but little of the dis- 

 order in his church. He discountenanced the wild enthusiasm from 

 the beginning, and threatened to have any one who became convulsed 

 turned out-of-doors. The religious frenzy soon began to abate when 

 the clergy set their faces against the stormy exercises. Rev. Joseph 

 Lyle, on the second Sabbath in July, 1803, preached in his church a 

 significant sermon on " Order." The congregation had come together 

 expecting the usual displays of feeling ; but though some were an- 

 gered by his doctrines, and some strove to promote the confusion of 

 intermingled exercises, only a few "fell," and, altogether, moderation 

 triumjmed. This was the first sermon preached against the fanaticism. 



It is a remarkable fact that, notwithstanding the intensity and 

 duration of this nervous disorder, no instance is recorded in which 

 permanent insanity resulted from it. Such results were to have been 

 expected ; insanity is mentioned by Edwards as having attended the 

 excitement in New England, and it may be that reason was dethroned 

 in some whose cases have not become matters of history. In a few 

 years, after a sounder public opinion began to assert itself, instances 

 of the disorder had become rare, but it was many years before the epi- 

 demic entirely ceased. 



As to its nature, there was but one opinion among medical men 

 from the beginning. All referred it to a derangement of the nervous 

 system. Dr. Felix Robertson, of Nashville, described the affection in 

 his thesis, published in Philadelphia, in 1805, as a form of chorea. In 

 some cases it took the form of that disease. In others it bore a 

 stronger resemblance to epilepsy ; while in a greater number it par- 

 took rather of the character of hysteria. It was eminently sympa- 

 thetic in its nature, as has been so often remarked of these affections. 

 The convulsions once started in a congregation spread quickly through 

 it, until all the fit subjects were convulsed. Repetition greatly in- 

 creased the proneness to the disorder, which was invited by the masses 

 on the supposition that it was a true religious exercise. 



These perverted muscular movements all come under the head of 

 morbid reflex action. By the continued religious fervor, the central 

 portions of the brain, the immediate seat of emotion and feeling, be- 

 came inordinately excited. The impression, transmitted downward to 

 the spinal cord, threw the muscles of voluntary motion into convul- 

 sions. Sensibility, which has its seat in the sensory ganglia, was gen- 

 erally annulled. When the hemispheres became involved, the subjects 

 fell into a state of unconsciousness or coma. In this abnormal condi- 

 tion of the nervous centers, the bare recollection of the distressing 

 scenes was sufficient in many cases to excite the convulsive movements. 

 The former belong to sensori-motor actions ; this last is an example of 

 ideo-motor movement ; instances of which are afforded by the act of 



