BODIL Y ILLNESS AS A MENTAL STIMULANT. 249 



a stronger antagonistic influence on the weak minds of his 

 patients. He therefore remarked casually to the mistress of 

 the school, in the hearing of the girls, that he had now tried 

 all methods but one, which he would try, as a last resource, 

 when next he called ' the application of a red-hot iron to 

 the spine of the patients so as to quiet their nervously- 

 excited 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 the 

 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 

 Solitude : 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 to 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 companions. 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 ot 

 Germany. It afterwards visited the nunneries of Holland, 

 and even spread as far as Rome.' No suggestion of bodily 

 disease is made in either case. But anyone who considers 



