For two week in 1956 , people who lived near Taipei , Taiwan , were terrified of amysterious slasherroaming the streets . The infernal fictitious character would sneakily slice people as he slip through crowds or brushed past them . About two dozen folk music , most of whom were poor womanhood and nipper , reported being thresh about [ rootage : Bartholomew and Goode ] .
But then something even unusual pass off . After police spoke with the victims , it became clear that there was nomass slasher . goad by hysterical news show report card , people thought that regular minor cut on their soundbox were the work of a crazed killer . In one case , the " slash " was an sure-enough combat injury which the person had scratched and re - opened .
Such mass hysterias , orcollective delusions , are in reality quite common . They chance often in places where small , miserly - knit group of people are gathered together and may be under stress — like school , convent and mill . Young women are the most potential victims . The hysterias in the main spread rapidly but are comparatively short - last [ sources : Bartholomew and Goode , Dominus ] .
In medical terminus , aggregative hysteria pass off when people become afflicted withconversion disorderliness , also called functional neurological symptom disorderliness . When this happen , a bad scare or tenseness — something mental or emotional — transforms into a medical issue . There are two type of conversion disorders : anxiety hysteriaandmotor hysteria . In the former , people develop symptoms such as vexation , dizziness and sickness , typically after perceiving something threatening , such as a foul smell or unusual discoloration . Hundreds of these cases occur annually in the U.S.
centrifugal craze involves everything from twitching and stammer to catatonic states and melodramatic outbursts . This is rare and is often find in restrictive societal scene , such as subject area - heavy boarding schools or prisons [ reference : Bartholomew and Goode , Dominus , Mayo Clinic ] .
Mass hysterias have occur across cultures and throughout clip . Here ’s a chronological look at 10 of the unknown unity .
10: Meowing and Biting Nuns (Middle Ages)
During theMiddle Ages , many nun buoy were forced into convents by their parent and often emphasize by a lifestyle not of their own choosing — one that necessitate celibacy , impoverishment and hard manual labor . Two especially bizarre cases of aggregate hysteria necessitate mew and bite nuns .
In the first lawsuit , a conical buoy in a large French convent start meowing one day . shortly others unite in , and eventually every nun in the convent was meow . The interference became structured ; all of the nun would mew together for several hours at the same time every day . The neighbors could discover the corporate caterwauling and were understandably harassed . Eventually the nun quiet down after being threatened with a beating bysoldiers .
Next threshold in Germany , in the 15th century , a nun begin bite the other sisters in her convent . It was n’t too prospicient before all of the nun were biting one another . Word circulate about the prick nuns , presume to have caught some character of nefarious infection , and presently the " contagion " spread to convents throughout a large portion of Germany , mostly in Saxony and Brandenburg . But it did n’t stop there ; convent in Holland and even Rome were also affected [ origin : Bartholomew and Goode ] . The nun finally stopped bite because of enervation [ rootage : Wundt ] .
9: Dancing Plague of 1518
Despite the July heat energy in 1518 , Frau Troffea began silently trip the light fantastic toe in the streets of Strasbourg , France . She ’d kept up her bizarre saltation marathon for nearly a calendar week when suddenly other citizen start join her . Soon the street were fill with three XII dancers . By August , an astounding 400 were shimmy and shaking nonstop all over the metropolis .
astonied and puzzle , doc nevertheless proclaimed this affliction was due to fever and urge the dancer keep at it until their fevers were pass away . The city seek to help , constructing a dance stage and bring in a band and professional dancer , presumably to entertain the victims during their uncontrollable gyrations .
But the great unwashed began collapse from debilitation and the heat . Some even died . The hysteria , which is well - document in historical records , did n’t end until the dancers were finally removed from the streets ( they were taken to a shrine to pray for absolution ) .
What brought on the dancing infestation ? Possibly stress . Disease and famine were embroil through Strasbourg at the time . Many mass were reduced to begging . It was also a superstitious period ; one common belief among Catholics was that St. Vitus could imprecate you with a dance plague [ source : Andrews , Wallis ] .
8: Salem Witch Trials (1692-1693)
It all commence when young Betty Parris and Abigail Williams start screaming uncontrollably and flailing about . A MD declared the two residents of Massachusetts ' rural Salem Village bewitched . Soon several other young girls come down with standardized symptom , frame the inculpation on three villagers , all adult female , as the one who had beguile them .
The womanhood were play to trial . Two denied the accusations , but one — a Caribbean hard worker nominate Tituba — squeal to bewitching the girls and extend to name other beldam , likely a ploy to save up herself from murder ( it work ) [ source : chronicle , University of Virginia ] .
As more people were swept up in the accusations , some confessed and sharpen the digit at even more people . Hysteriaflooded the small town and pour forth over into the rest of Massachusetts . Five months after Parris and Williams first suffer fits , the courts were choke off with witchcraft slip .
The havoc finally died down about a year later , after several respected citizens begin force for solid grounds to be face in the witchcraft trials , as opposed to bank on dreams and visions . By the time the tryout were stopped , 19 hoi polloi had been advert , seven die in gaol awaiting execution and one man had been pressed to death by rock . In all , 200 mass were accused of practicingwitchcraft[sources : History , Blumberg ]
7: Kissing Bug Scare (1899)
kiss hemipteron , a subfamily of assassin glitch , feed on the line of mammalian , include humans . Often entering homes and outhouses , they like to sting the thinner skin of a victim ’s face or rim , which make for an easy snack . Whenkissing bug sting , they can be quite painful , and some bear disease [ source : University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee ] .
In 1899 , a cuddling bug epidemic set off in the northeastern U.S. More than 60 paper article from around the country breathlessly report account of the great unwashed wake up with swollen palpebra and lip . Although swelling subsided unremarkably in two or three days , the papers noted a few cases of death from these bugs . Residents of city from Boston to Atlanta became terrified of all flying insects and begin sending microbe specimens to entomologists , asking whether their specimen was a lethal kissing bug [ Garcia et al . ] .
When bug-hunter examined these hemipterous insect , they found a sort of insects , range from housefly to beetles to bee . Leland Howard , entomology chief for the U.S. Department of Agriculture , referred to this panic attack as a " paper epidemic , for every insect bite where the biter was not at once recognise was attributed to the pop and somewhat inscrutable creature " [ source : Bartholomew and Evans].The affright apparently subsided when newspaper stopped cover it .
6: Halifax Slasher (1938)
For near two weeks in November 1938 , occupant living in Halifax , England , were terrorize by a man run around in the wickedness , trounce women with a tongue or razor . The panic began Nov. 16 , when two woman arrived at a local police place , both with capitulum combat injury that appear to be due to some kind of brand . They ’d been attacked by a military man , they told constabulary . Five days later on , a third charwoman ran to the police with a deep razor - same cut in her wrist . In both cases , no evidence was discover at thecrime scenes . Police were stumped , and citizens became implicated [ rootage : Glover ] .
Over the next week , more people were enigmatically attacked , all get some type of cut . By now the public was look up to the assailant as the " Halifax Slasher , " and police said there could be up to three different man attacking victim . Businessesshuttered their windows . Vigilante groups formed , sometimes assail men who look mistrustful or out of place . Law enforcement officials put in a call to Scotland Yard for help , and two detectives get Nov. 29 [ source : Gerber ] .
As the tec began question the dupe , their stories break . on the spur of the moment , everyone start squeal that they had actually cut or offend themselves . One woman aver she fought with her fellow and , confused , sliced her arm because she had heard about the Halifax Slasher . After nine of the 12 victim fink to ego - harm , constabulary closed the investigation . The nine were all reprehensively accuse , with four going to jail [ source : Gerber ] .
5: Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic (1962)
At a small girls ' embarkment school in Tanganyika ( now Tanzania ) , three students start to giggle . get and stop short , their fit would last anywhere from a second or two to several hour . This " laughter " proved contagious — before long other girls were doing the same matter . No one could concentrate on their schoolwork , and constrain thelaughing studentsproved ineffective . Six weeks afterward , more than half of the school ’s middle and in high spirits schoolers had caught the laughing microbe .
School functionary shut the place down . But when they reopen it two months after , the laughing pest immediately restart and the school day was once again shuttered . The laughing epidemic spread to other schools and go somewhere between six and 18 months [ sources : McGraw and Warner , Sebastian ] .
So what have this ? " The sorry news show is , it had nothing to do with bodily fluid . There was no merriment . laugh was one of many symptoms , " said linguist Christian F. Hempelmann , whoresearchedthe incident . He noted that the students also had fits of pain , fainting , crying and rashes .
He blamed excessive stress for the uncontrollable giggles . The boarding shoal where the laughter start was a very rigorous one . Plus the land had just gained its independency , and people were unquiet about the futurity . With all of theterrorismin the world today , experts say another laugh epidemic would n’t be surprising [ sources : McGraw and Warner , Sebastian ] .
4: Day Care Ritual Abuse Cases (1983-1992)
It all began when a mother ( who wasmentally unstable ) accused Ray Buckey , a proletarian the McMartin Preschool near Los Angeles , of dishonour her child . Although police were ab initio skeptical , in an abundance of precaution they send letters home to the parents of other shaver at the day tutelage mall asking them to call into question their children about act like sodomy and unwritten sex . As parents babble to their child and to each other , more charge pursue . Buckey , his mother , Peggy McMartin ( who possess the schoolhouse ) , and other teachers were eventually charged with 208 counts of child molestation [ sources : Wasserman , Haberman ] .
As time get going on , and social workers were brought in to " get more information " out of the young tike , the accusations got Billy Wilder . In gain to being raped and sodomized , the tyke said they ’d participated inSatanic rituals , been forced to drink parentage and had witnessed a babe being sacrificed in a Christian church . The result trial live on several age , but none of the defendants was find shamefaced of anything .
During the years the McMartin trial was exit on , and even after , alike allegations were leveled against day care centers and their employees in 46 states . At the Little Rascals Day Care Center in North Carolina , for instance , defendants were impeach of sexual abuse as well as a host of other actions involving spaceships , hot air balloon and highjack ship . Many hoi polloi were ascertain guilty , only to be released later when their conviction were tip over [ sources : Wasserman , Haberman , Little Rascals Day Care Case ] .
No one knows for certain how thing grow so out of hand . Richard Beck , writer of the rule book " We think the Children , " says during that era many adult were worried about crime and the decline of regard for traditional authority . Add to that themedia coveragethat report everything at face time value — and the go inquiry societal workers ask the nestling at the twenty-four hour period forethought center — and you ’ve got a full - fledged scare [ source : Casey ] .
3: West Bank Fainting Epidemic (1983)
In the spring of 1983 , nearly 1,000 young Arabs in the West Bank all of a sudden became ill with a mysterious complaint characterized by symptoms like headache , dizziness , hazy visual sense , abdominal pain , weakness and fainting . Seventy percent of the patients were schoolgirl 12 to 17 years old [ author : plaza for Disease Control and Prevention ] .
When some of the early dupe said they smelled a strange odor reminiscent of rotten testicle in their classroom before falling ill , Palestinian leaders accused the Israelis of using chemical substance warfare to drive off the Arabs ; some even claim it was to sterilize Arab females . Israeli official , in bit , said Palestinians were using chemicals on their own multitude to stir up difficulty [ source : Shipler ] .
After schools closed in the West Bank , no additional illnesses take place . And no suggestion of chemic residue was found in any of the buildings . wellness sureness find that the initial group to diminish ill may have been affected by the scent of low levels of H sulfide gas escaping from a latrine . But the volume of the sufferers became ill because of psychological factors , namely stress andanxiety , which were in all likelihood caused or raise by news show reports suggesting a toxic accelerator was the perpetrator .
2: Strawberries with Sugar Virus (2006)
In May 2006 , more than 300 Portuguese schoolkids began complain they were sick . Many were having problems breathing . Some were light-headed . Others developedrashes . The tiddler were disperse at 14 different schoolhouse around the area , and some of the school were forced to fill up [ source : China Daily ] . Was it possible a virulent virus had descended upon the country ?
Here ’s the intriguing part : These egress developed just a few day after a popular teen soap opera house " Morangos com Açúcar " ( " Strawberries with Sugar " ) aerate an episode about a mysterious , life history - threatening virus . The show center on the life of Portuguese Thomas Kyd , and in the episode , the computer virus was striking baby at a shoal .
After much study , medical officials decided theTV programwas part of the problem . Some kids who had allergies or rashes became fearful their ailments were in reality serious health problems after consider the show . Other kids recrudesce the " illness " because they were stressed about the upcoming remnant - of - yr exam . And some simply suffered from corporate psychotic belief . How could expert be so sure ? " I know of no disease which is so selective that it only attack schoolchildren , " Dr. Mario Almeidatold local daily Correio de Manha .
1: William Byrd High School Twitching Incident (2007)
Experts blamed a whole raft of thing for the illness that struck several educatee and one teacher at Virginia ’s William Byrd High School : Carbon dioxide from the picture taking schoolroom . Lead paint . Drugs . Chronic Fatigue Syndrome . Even swamp accelerator and raging hormones .
In September 2007 , a educatee at the eminent school day go down ill with tremors , twitching , dizzinessand headaches . Soon nearly a twelve people were smite , cause alarm in the school and residential district . School official were recommend to fill up the insane asylum ; at one breaker point about 300 of the schooling ’s 1,200 bookman were bide home .
Virginia ’s Department of Health sweep in , perform innumerable tests to see whether there was an environmental issue causing the symptoms . But after weeks of study , all results were disconfirming . The ending : a sociogenic problem ( i.e. , one produce by societal issues ) . In other words , mass frenzy . The reason for the hysteria was presumed to be stress . However , the schoolhouse superintendent was uncertain , state these students were no more stressed than any others [ source : Jeffries ] .
Lots More Information
I ’ve never accrue prey to an episode of mass hysteria , although I was around during the day care ritual abuse scare . I definitely retrieve reading about it and being appalled . But I was vernal and did n’t have any children of my own at the time , so I was n’t that indue in the floor . What ’s scarier to me today is a state of affairs like one in Le Roy , New York , where 18 little girl began twitching . Some said it was conversion disorder , but others disagreed , assert it must be because of an transmission or some form of contaminant in the soil ( during a 1970 string accident in the area , toxic chemicals were spilled ) . The girls finally got well through counselling and antibiotic . Since the antibiotic drug could have cured an contagion or " healed " the girlfriend through the placebo effect , in the end the episode is still a mystery .
