80 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



systems." " Strange to say," remarks Zerffi meaning, no doubt, " it 

 is hardly necessary to say that " " the red-hot iron was never applied, 

 for the hysterical attacks ceased as if by magic." 



In another case mentioned by Zerffi, a revival mania in a large 

 school near Cologne was similarly brought to an abrupt end. The 

 Government sent an inspector. He found that the boys had visions of 

 Christ, the Virgin, and departed saints. He threatened to close the 

 school if these visions continued, and thus to exclude the students from 

 all tlie prospects which their studies afforded them. " The effect was 

 as magical as the red-hot iron remedy the revivals ceased as if by 

 magic." 



The following singular cases are related in Zimmermann's " Soli- 

 tude " : A nun, in a very large convent in France, began to mew like a 

 cat. At last all the nuns began to mew together every day at a certain 

 time, and continued mewing for several hours together. This daily cat- 

 concert continued until the nuns were informed that a company of 

 soldiers was placed by the police before the entrance of the convent, 

 and that the soldiers were provided with rods with which they would 

 whip the nuns until they promised not to mew any more. ... In the 

 fifteenth century, a nun in a German convent fell to biting her com- 

 panions. In the course of a short time all the nuns of this convent 

 began biting each other. The news of this infatuation among the nuns 

 soon spread, and excited the same elsewhere ; the biting mania passing 

 from convent to convent through a great part of German}'. It after- 

 ward visited the nunneries of Holland, and even spread as far as Rome." 

 No suggestion of bodily disease is made in either case. But any one 

 who considers how utterly unnatural is the manner of life in monastic 

 communities will not need the evidence derived from the spread of such 

 preposterous habits to be assured that in convents the perfectly sane 

 mind in a perfectly healthy body must be the exception rather than the 

 rule. 



The dancing mania, which spread through a large part of Europe in 

 the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, although it eventually attacked 

 persons who were seemingly in robust health, yet had its origin in dis- 

 ease. Dr. Hecker, who has given the most complete account we have of 

 this strange mania, in his " Epidemics of the Middle Ages," says that 

 when the disease was completely developed the attack commenced with 

 epileptic convulsions. " Those affected fell to the ground senseless, 

 panting and laboring for breath. They foamed at the mouth, and sud- 

 denly springing up began their dance amid strange contortions. They 

 formed circles hand in hand, and appearing to have lest all control over 

 their senses continued dancing, regardless of the bystanders, for hours 

 together, in wild delirium, until at length they fell to the ground in a 

 state of exhaustion. They then complained of extreme oppression, and 

 groaned as if in the agonies of death, until they were swathed in clothes 

 bound tightly round their waists ; upon which they again recovered, 



