242 TWO IMPORTANT 



of the convent, armed with rods, and with orders to soundly 

 castigate the mewers. 



A still more alarming nervous epidemic broke out in a German 

 convent in the 15th century. One nun bit some of her compan- 

 ions, and in a short time the biting passed round with interest — 

 all the nuns began to bite one another. The news of this 

 infatuation among the nuns spreading, the epidemic passed from 

 convent to convent through a great part of Germany, and even 

 extended as far as Rome. (Zimmermann on " Solitude.") 



In Italy, the dancing mania occurred much later than in 

 Germany, and took the form of '' Tarantism," that is, the disease 

 was supposed to be caused by the bite of a certain spider — Taran- 

 tula — and a cure would only be effected by violent dancing. But 

 Tarantism was just as mfectious and as independent of any bodily 

 spider as other nervous epidemics. It was at its height when 

 Italy lay in her lowest state of degradation, in the i6th century, 

 and then, in spite of spiders, very gradually died away. 



Dr. Hecker pursues the history of nervous epidemics as they 

 have appeared in Protestant countries, chiefly in connection with 

 advanced Calvinism. He traces the disease as it breaks out in 

 camp-meetings in the United States, and as it appeared in isolated 

 districts of Scotland, always showing the same main symptoms ; 

 the seizure of one or two amongst the audience, and the rapid 

 infection of the rest ; the utter loss of self-control, the shrieks, 

 the cries, the groans, and finally the prevalence of all these symp- 

 toms amongst the ignorant or the half-educated, leaving the 

 cultivated classes untouched. 



It is sometimes assumed that nervous and " hysterical " 

 diseases are on the increase in our days. It is true that the 

 meagre survivals of these diseases have been studied as they never 

 have been before, but they are studied as anthropologists examine 

 the habits of native Australians, or the Ainos of Japan, before 

 these low races have passed away. Nervous diseases, which raged 

 furiously for centuries amongst thousands of people, and over 

 widely-stretching countries ; which caused innumerable deaths 

 and untold sufferings, and which convulsed society in Germany to 

 its foundations, are now confined to sporadic cases of hystero- 

 epilepsy in our asylums. From this point of view, the wildest 



