148 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



important for science is established. It was found that these 

 manifestations do not arise entirely from religious sources. In 

 1787 came the noted case at Hodden Bridge, in Lancashire. A 

 girl working in a cotton-manufactory there put a mouse into the 

 bosom of another girl, who had a great dread of mice. The girl 

 thus treated immediately went into convulsions, which lasted 

 twenty-four hours. Shortly afterward three other girls were 

 seized with like convulsions, a little later six more, and finally, in 

 all, twenty-four were attacked. Then came a fact throwing a 

 flood of light upon earlier occurrences. This epidemic, being 

 noised abroad, soon spread to another factory five miles distant. 

 The patients suffered from strangulation, danced, tore their hair, 

 and dashed their heads against the walls. There was a strong 

 belief that it was a disease introduced in cotton, but a resident 

 physician amused the patients with electric shocks, and the dis- 

 ease died out. 



In 1801 came a case of similar import in the Charity Hospital 

 at Berlin. A girl fell into strong convulsions. The disease proved 

 contagious, several others becoming afflicted in a similar way; 

 but nearly all were finally cured, principally by the administra- 

 tion of opium, which appears at that time to have been a fashion- 

 able remedy. 



Similar to this was a case at Lyons in 1851. Sixty women were 

 working together in a shop, when one of them, after a bitter quar- 

 rel with her husband, fell into a violent nervous attack. The 

 other women, sympathizing with her, gathered about to assist her, 

 but one after another fell into a similar condition, until twenty 

 were thus prostrated, and a more general spread of the epidemic 

 was only prevented by clearing the premises.* 



But, while these cases appeared to the eye of Science fatal to 

 the old conception of diabolic influence, the great majority of 

 such epidemics, when unexplained, continued to give strength to 

 the older view. 



In Roman Catholic countries these manifestations, as we have 

 seen, have generally appeared in convents, or in churches where 

 young girls are brought together for their first communion, or at 

 shrines where miracles are supposed to be wrought. 



In Protestant countries they appear in times of great religious 

 excitement, and especially when large bodies of young women are 

 submitted to the influence of noisy and frothy preachers. Well- 

 known examples of this in America are seen in the " Jumpers/' 

 " Jerkers," and various revival extravagances, especially among 

 the negroes and " poor whites " of the Southern States. 



* For these examples and others, see Tuke, " Influence of the Mind upon the Body," 

 vol. i, pp. 100, 277 ; also Hecker's " Essay," chap. iv. 



