From this description, incomplete as it is, we may easily gather that

tarantism, the essential symptoms of which are mentioned in it, could not

have originated in the fifteenth century, to which Perotti's account

refers; for that author speaks of it as a well-known malady, and states

that the omission to notice it by older writers was to be ascribed solely

to the want of education in Apulia, the only province probably where the

disease at that time prevailed. A nervous disorder that had arrived at

so high a degree of development must have been long in existence, and

doubtless had required an elaborate preparation by the concurrence of

general causes.

The symptoms which followed the bite of venomous spiders were well known

to the ancients, and had excited the attention of their best observers,

who agree in their descriptions of them. It is probable that among the

numerous species of their phalangium, the Apulian tarantula is included,

but it is difficult to determine this point with certainty, more

especially because in Italy the tarantula was not the only insect which

caused this nervous affection, similar results being likewise attributed

to the bite of the scorpion. Lividity of the whole body, as well as of

the countenance, difficulty of speech, tremor of the limbs, icy coldness,

pale urine, depression of spirits, headache, a flow of tears, nausea,

vomiting, sexual excitement, flatulence, syncope, dysuria, watchfulness,

lethargy, even death itself, were cited by them as the consequences of

being bitten by venomous spiders, and they made little distinction as to

their kinds. To these symptoms we may add the strange rumour, repeated

throughout the middle ages, that persons who were bitten, ejected by the

bowels and kidneys, and even by vomiting, substances resembling a

spider's web.

Nowhere, however, do we find any mention made that those affected felt an

irresistible propensity to dancing, or that they were accidentally cured

by it. Even Constantine of Africa, who lived 500 years after Aetius,

and, as the most learned physician of the school of Salerno, would

certainly not have passed over so acceptable a subject of remark, knows

nothing of such a memorable course of this disease arising from poison,

and merely repeats the observations of his Greek predecessors.

Gariopontus, a Salernian physician of the eleventh century, was the first

to describe a kind of insanity, the remote affinity of which to the

tarantula disease is rendered apparent by a very striking symptom. The

patients in their sudden attacks behaved like maniacs, sprang up,

throwing their arms about with wild movements, and, if perchance a sword

was at hand, they wounded themselves and others, so that it became

necessary carefully to secure them. They imagined that they heard voices

and various kinds of sounds, and if, during this state of illusion, the

tones of a favourite instrument happened to catch their ear, they

commenced a spasmodic dance, or ran with the utmost energy which they

could muster until they were totally exhausted. These dangerous maniacs,

who, it would seem, appeared in considerable numbers, were looked upon as

a legion of devils, but on the causes of their malady this obscure writer

adds nothing further than that he believes (oddly enough) that it may

sometimes be excited by the bite of a mad dog. He calls the disease

Anteneasmus, by which is meant no doubt the Enthusiasmus of the Greek

physicians. We cite this phenomenon as an important forerunner of

tarantism, under the conviction that we have thus added to the evidence

that the development of this latter must have been founded on

circumstances which existed from the twelfth to the end of the fourteenth

century; for the origin of tarantism itself is referable, with the utmost

probability, to a period between the middle and the end of this century,

and is consequently contemporaneous with that of the St. Vitus's dance

(1374). The influence of the Roman Catholic religion, connected as this

was, in the middle ages, with the pomp of processions, with public

exercises of penance, and with innumerable practices which strongly

excited the imaginations of its votaries, certainly brought the mind to a

very favourable state for the reception of a nervous disorder.

Accordingly, so long as the doctrines of Christianity were blended with

so much mysticism, these unhallowed disorders prevailed to an important

extent, and even in our own days we find them propagated with the

greatest facility where the existence of superstition produces the same

effect, in more limited districts, as it once did among whole nations.

But this is not all. Every country in Europe, and Italy perhaps more

than any other, was visited during the middle ages by frightful plagues,

which followed each other in such quick succession that they gave the

exhausted people scarcely any time for recovery. The Oriental

bubo-plague ravaged Italy sixteen times between the years 1119 and 1340.

Small-pox and measles were still more destructive than in modern times,

and recurred as frequently. St. Anthony's fire was the dread of town and

country; and that disgusting disease, the leprosy, which, in consequence

of the Crusades, spread its insinuating poison in all directions,

snatched from the paternal hearth innumerable victims who, banished from

human society, pined away in lonely huts, whither they were accompanied

only by the pity of the benevolent and their own despair. All these

calamities, of which the moderns have scarcely retained any recollection,

were heightened to an incredible degree by the Black Death, which spread

boundless devastation and misery over Italy. Men's minds were everywhere

morbidly sensitive; and as it happened with individuals whose senses,

when they are suffering under anxiety, become more irritable, so that

trifles are magnified into objects of great alarm, and slight shocks,

which would scarcely affect the spirits when in health, gave rise in them

to severe diseases, so was it with this whole nation, at all times so

alive to emotions, and at that period so sorely oppressed with the

horrors of death.

The bite of venomous spiders, or rather the unreasonable fear of its

consequences, excited at such a juncture, though it could not have done

so at an earlier period, a violent nervous disorder, which, like St.

Vitus's dance in Germany, spread by sympathy, increasing in severity as

it took a wider range, and still further extending its ravages from its

long continuance. Thus, from the middle of the fourteenth century, the

furies of _the Dance_ brandished their scourge over afflicted mortals;

and music, for which the inhabitants of Italy, now probably for the first

time, manifested susceptibility and talent, became capable of exciting

ecstatic attacks in those affected, and then furnished the magical means

of exorcising their melancholy.

SECT. 3--INCREASE

At the close of the fifteenth century we find that tarantism had spread

beyond the boundaries of Apulia, and that the fear of being bitten by

venomous spiders had increased. Nothing short of death itself was

expected from the wound which these insects inflicted, and if those who

were bitten escaped with their lives, they were said to be seen pining

away in a desponding state of lassitude. Many became weak-sighted or

hard of hearing, some lost the power of speech, and all were insensible

to ordinary causes of excitement. Nothing but the flute or the cithern

afforded them relief. At the sound of these instruments they awoke as it

were by enchantment, opened their eyes, and moving slowly at first,

according to the measure of the music, were, as the time quickened,

gradually hurried on to the most passionate dance. It was generally

observable that country people, who were rude, and ignorant of music,

evinced on these occasions an unusual degree of grace, as if they had

been well practised in elegant movements of the body; for it is a

peculiarity in nervous disorders of this kind, that the organs of motion

are in an altered condition, and are completely under the control of the

over-strained spirits. Cities and villages alike resounded throughout

the summer season with the notes of fifes, clarinets, and Turkish drums;

and patients were everywhere to be met with who looked to dancing as

their only remedy. Alexander ab Alexandro, who gives this account, saw a

young man in a remote village who was seized with a violent attack of

tarantism. He listened with eagerness and a fixed stare to the sound of

a drum, and his graceful movements gradually became more and more

violent, until his dancing was converted into a succession of frantic

leaps, which required the utmost exertion of his whole strength. In the

midst of this over-strained exertion of mind and body the music suddenly

ceased, and he immediately fell powerless to the ground, where he lay

senseless and motionless until its magical effect again aroused him to a

renewal of his impassioned performances.

At the period of which we are treating there was a general conviction,

that by music and dancing the poison of the tarantula was distributed

over the whole body, and expelled through the skin, but that if there

remained the slightest vestige of it in the vessels, this became a

permanent germ of the disorder, so that the dancing fits might again and

again be excited ad infinitum by music. This belief, which resembled the

delusion of those insane persons who, being by artful management freed

from the imagined causes of their sufferings, are but for a short time

released from their false notions, was attended with the most injurious

effects: for in consequence of it those affected necessarily became by

degrees convinced of the incurable nature of their disorder. They

expected relief, indeed, but not a cure, from music; and when the heat of

summer awakened a recollection of the dances of the preceding year, they,

like the St. Vitus's dancers of the same period before St. Vitus's day,

again grew dejected and misanthropic, until, by music and dancing, they

dispelled the melancholy which had become with them a kind of sensual

enjoyment.

Under such favourable circumstances, it is clear that tarantism must

every year have made further progress. The number of those affected by

it increased beyond all belief, for whoever had either actually been, or

even fancied that he had been, once bitten by a poisonous spider or

scorpion, made his appearance annually wherever the merry notes of the

tarantella resounded. Inquisitive females joined the throng and caught

the disease, not indeed from the poison of the spider, but from the

mental poison which they eagerly received through the eye; and thus the

cure of the tarantati gradually became established as a regular festival

of the populace, which was anticipated with impatient delight.

Without attributing more to deception and fraud than to the peculiar

nature of a progressive mental malady, it may readily be conceived that

the cases of this strange disorder now grew more frequent. The

celebrated Matthioli, who is worthy of entire confidence, gives his

account as an eye-witness. He saw the same extraordinary effects

produced by music as Alexandro, for, however tortured with pain, however

hopeless of relief the patients appeared, as they lay stretched on the

couch of sickness, at the very first sounds of those melodies which made

an impression on them--but this was the case only with the tarantellas

composed expressly for the purpose--they sprang up as if inspired with

new life and spirit, and, unmindful of their disorder, began to move in

measured gestures, dancing for hour together without fatigue, until,

covered with a kindly perspiration, they felt a salutary degree of

lassitude, which relieved them for a time at least, perhaps even for a

whole year, from their defection and oppressive feeling of general

indisposition. Alexandro's experience of the injurious effects resulting

from a sudden cessation of the music was generally confirmed by

Matthioli. If the clarinets and drums ceased for a single moment, which,

as the most skilful payers were tired out by the patients, could not but

happen occasionally, they suffered their limbs to fall listless, again

sank exhausted to the ground, and could find no solace but in a renewal

of the dance. On this account care was taken to continue the music until

exhaustion was produced; for it was better to pay a few extra musicians,

who might relieve each other, than to permit the patient, in the midst of

this curative exercise, to relapse into so deplorable a state of

suffering. The attack consequent upon the bite of the tarantula,

Matthioli describes as varying much in its manner. Some became morbidly

exhilarated, so that they remained for a long while without sleep,

laughing, dancing, and singing in a state of the greatest excitement.

Others, on the contrary, were drowsy. The generality felt nausea and

suffered from vomiting, and some had constant tremors. Complete mania

was no uncommon occurrence, not to mention the usual dejection of spirits

and other subordinate symptoms.

SECT. 4--IDIOSYNCRASIES--MUSIC

Unaccountable emotions, strange desires, and morbid sensual irritations

of all kinds, were as prevalent as in the St. Vitus's dance and similar

great nervous maladies. So late as the sixteenth century patients were

seen armed with glittering swords which, during the attack, they

brandished with wild gestures, as if they were going to engage in a

fencing match. Even women scorned all female delicacy, and, adopting

this impassioned demeanour, did the same; and this phenomenon, as well as

the excitement which the tarantula dancers felt at the sight of anything

with metallic lustre, was quite common up to the period when, in modern

times, the disease disappeared.

The abhorrence of certain colours, and the agreeable sensations produced

by others, were much more marked among the excitable Italians than was

the case in the St. Vitus's dance with the more phlegmatic Germans. Red

colours, which the St. Vitus's dancers detested, they generally liked, so

that a patient was seldom seen who did not carry a red handkerchief for

his gratification, or greedily feast his eyes on any articles of red

clothing worn by the bystanders. Some preferred yellow, others black

colours, of which an explanation was sought, according to the prevailing

notions of the times, in the difference of temperaments. Others, again,

were enraptured with green; and eye-witnesses describe this rage for

colours as so extraordinary, that they can scarcely find words with which

to express their astonishment. No sooner did the patients obtain a sight

of the favourite colour than, new as the impression was, they rushed like

infuriated animals towards the object, devoured it with their eager

looks, kissed and caressed it in every possible way, and gradually

resigning themselves to softer sensations, adopted the languishing

expression of enamoured lovers, and embraced the handkerchief, or

whatever other article it might be, which was presented to them, with the

most intense ardour, while the tears streamed from their eyes as if they

were completely overwhelmed by the inebriating impression on their

senses.

The dancing fits of a certain Capuchin friar in Tarentum excited so much

curiosity, that Cardinal Cajetano proceeded to the monastery, that he

might see with his own eyes what was going on. As soon as the monk, who

was in the midst of his dance, perceived the spiritual prince clothed in

his red garments, he no longer listened to the tarantella of the

musicians, but with strange gestures endeavoured to approach the

Cardinal, as if he wished to count the very threads of his scarlet robe,

and to allay his intense longing by its odour. The interference of the

spectators, and his own respect, prevented his touching it, and thus the

irritation of his senses not being appeased, he fell into a state of such

anguish and disquietude, that he presently sank down in a swoon, from

which he did not recover until the Cardinal compassionately gave him his

cape. This he immediately seized in the greatest ecstasy, and pressed

now to his breast, now to his forehead and cheeks, and then again

commenced his dance as if in the frenzy of a love fit.

At the sight of colours which they disliked, patients flew into the most

violent rage, and, like the St. Vitus's dancers when they saw red

objects, could scarcely be restrained from tearing the clothes of those

spectators who raised in them such disagreeable sensations.

Another no less extraordinary symptom was the ardent longing for the sea

which the patients evinced. As the St. John's dancers of the fourteenth

century saw, in the spirit, the heavens open and display all the

splendour of the saints, so did those who were suffering under the bite

of the tarantula feel themselves attracted to the boundless expanse of

the blue ocean, and lost themselves in its contemplation. Some songs,

which are still preserved, marked this peculiar longing, which was

moreover expressed by significant music, and was excited even by the bare

mention of the sea. Some, in whom this susceptibility was carried to the

greatest pitch, cast themselves with blind fury into the blue waves, as

the St. Vitus's dancers occasionally did into rapid rivers. This

condition, so opposite to the frightful state of hydrophobia, betrayed

itself in others only in the pleasure afforded them by the sight of clear

water in glasses. These they bore in their hands while dancing,

exhibiting at the same time strange movements, and giving way to the most

extravagant expressions of their feeling. They were delighted also when,

in the midst of the space allotted for this exercise, more ample vessels,

filled with water, and surrounded by rushes and water plants, were

placed, in which they bathed their heads and arms with evident pleasure.

Others there were who rolled about on the ground, and were, by their own

desire, buried up to the neck in the earth, in order to alleviate the

misery of their condition; not to mention an endless variety of other

symptoms which showed the perverted action of the nerves.

All these modes of relief, however, were as nothing in comparison with

the irresistible charms of musical sound. Attempts had indeed been made

in ancient times to mitigate the pain of sciatica, or the paroxysms of

mania, by the soft melody of the flute, and, what is still more

applicable to the present purpose, to remove the danger arising from the

bite of vipers by the same means. This, however, was tried only to a

very small extent. But after being bitten by the tarantula, there was,

according to popular opinion, no way of saving life except by music; and

it was hardly considered as an exception to the general rule, that every

now and then the bad effects of a wound were prevented by placing a

ligature on the bitten limb, or by internal medicine, or that strong

persons occasionally withstood the effects of the poison, without the

employment of any remedies at all. It was much more common, and is quite

in accordance with the nature of so exquisite a nervous disease, to hear

accounts of many who, when bitten by the tarantula, perished miserably

because the tarantella, which would have afforded them deliverance, was

not played to them. It was customary, therefore, so early as the

commencement of the seventeenth century, for whole bands of musicians to

traverse Italy during the summer months, and, what is quite unexampled

either in ancient or modern times, the cure of the Tarantati in the

different towns and villages was undertaken on a grand scale. This

season of dancing and music was called "the women's little carnival," for

it was women more especially who conducted the arrangements; so that

throughout the whole country they saved up their spare money, for the

purpose of rewarding the welcome musicians, and many of them neglected

their household employments to participate in this festival of the sick.

Mention is even made of one benevolent lady (Mita Lupa) who had expended

her whole fortune on this object.

The music itself was of a kind perfectly adapted to the nature of the

malady, and it made so deep an impression on the Italians, that even to

the present time, long since the extinction of the disorder, they have

retained the tarantella, as a particular species of music employed for

quick, lively dancing. The different kinds of tarantella were

distinguished, very significantly, by particular names, which had

reference to the moods observed in the patients. Whence it appears that

they aimed at representing by these tunes even the idiosyncrasies of the

mind as expressed in the countenance. Thus there was one kind of

tarantella which was called "Panno rosso," a very lively, impassioned

style of music, to which wild dithyrambic songs were adapted; another,

called "Panno verde," which was suited to the milder excitement of the

senses caused by green colours, and set to Idyllian songs of verdant

fields and shady groves. A third was named "Cinque tempi:" a fourth

"Moresca," which was played to a Moorish dance; a fifth, "Catena;" and a

sixth, with a very appropriate designation, "Spallata," as if it were

only fit to be played to dancers who were lame in the shoulder. This was

the slowest and least in vogue of all. For those who loved water they

took care to select love songs, which were sung to corresponding music,

and such persons delighted in hearing of gushing springs and rushing

cascades and streams. It is to be regretted that on this subject we are

unable to give any further information, for only small fragments of

songs, and a very few tarantellas, have been preserved which belong to a

period so remote as the beginning of the seventeenth, or at furthest the

end of the sixteenth century.

The music was almost wholly in the Turkish style (aria Turchesca), and

the ancient songs of the peasantry of Apulia, which increased in number

annually, were well suited to the abrupt and lively notes of the Turkish

drum and the shepherd's pipe. These two instruments were the favourites

in the country, but others of all kinds were played in towns and

villages, as an accompaniment to the dances of the patients and the songs

of the spectators. If any particular melody was disliked by those

affected, they indicated their displeasure by violent gestures expressive

of aversion. They could not endure false notes, and it is remarkable

that uneducated boors, who had never in their lives manifested any

perception of the enchanting power of harmony, acquired, in this respect,

an extremely refined sense of hearing, as if they had been initiated into

the profoundest secrets of the musical art. It was a matter of every

day's experience, that patients showed a predilection for certain

tarantellas, in preference to others, which gave rise to the composition

of a great variety of these dances. They were likewise very capricious

in their partialities for particular instruments; so that some longed for

the shrill notes of the trumpet, others for the softest music produced by

the vibration of strings.

Tarantism was at its greatest height in Italy in the seventeenth century,

long after the St. Vitus's Dance of Germany had disappeared. It was not

the natives of the country only who were attacked by this complaint.

Foreigners of every colour and of every race, negroes, gipsies,

Spaniards, Albanians, were in like manner affected by it. Against the

effects produced by the tarantula's bite, or by the sight of the

sufferers, neither youth nor age afforded any protection; so that even

old men of ninety threw aside their crutches at the sound of the

tarantella, and, as if some magic potion, restorative of youth and

vigour, were flowing through their veins, joined the most extravagant

dancers. Ferdinando saw a boy five years old seized with the dancing

mania, in consequence of the bite of a tarantula, and, what is almost

past belief, were it not supported by the testimony of so credible an eye-

witness, even deaf people were not exempt from this disorder, so potent

in its effect was the very sight of those affected, even without the

exhilarating emotions caused by music.

Subordinate nervous attacks were much more frequent during this century

than at any former period, and an extraordinary icy coldness was observed

in those who were the subject of them; so that they did not recover their

natural heat until they had engaged in violent dancing. Their anguish

and sense of oppression forced from them a cold perspiration; the

secretion from the kidneys was pale, and they had so great a dislike to

everything cold, that when water was offered them they pushed it away

with abhorrence. Wine, on the contrary, they all drank willingly,

without being heated by it, or in the slightest degree intoxicated.

During the whole period of the attack they suffered from spasms in the

stomach, and felt a disinclination to take food of any kind. They used

to abstain some time before the expected seizures from meat and from

snails, which they thought rendered them more severe, and their great

thirst for wine may therefore in some measure be attributable to the want

of a more nutritious diet; yet the disorder of the nerves was evidently

its chief cause, and the loss of appetite, as well as the necessity for

support by wine, were its effects. Loss of voice, occasional blindness,

vertigo, complete insanity, with sleeplessness, frequent weeping without

any ostensible cause, were all usual symptoms. Many patients found

relief from being placed in swings or rocked in cradles; others required

to be roused from their state of suffering by severe blows on the soles

of their feet; others beat themselves, without any intention of making a

display, but solely for the purpose of allaying the intense nervous

irritation which they felt; and a considerable number were seen with

their bellies swollen, like those of the St. John's dancers, while the

violence of the intestinal disorder was indicated in others by obstinate

constipation or diarrhoea and vomiting. These pitiable objects gradually

lost their strength and their colour, and creeping about with injected

eyes, jaundiced complexions, and inflated bowels, soon fell into a state

of profound melancholy, which found food and solace in the solemn tolling

of the funeral bell, and in an abode among the tombs of cemeteries, as is

related of the Lycanthropes of former times.

The persuasion of the inevitable consequences of being bitten by the

tarantula, exercised a dominion over men's minds which even the

healthiest and strongest could not shake off. So late as the middle of

the sixteenth century, the celebrated Fracastoro found the robust bailiff

of his landed estate groaning, and, with the aspect of a person in the

extremity of despair, suffering the very agonies of death from a sting in

the neck, inflicted by an insect which was believed to be a tarantula. He

kindly administered without delay a potion of vinegar and Armenian bole,

the great remedy of those days for the plague of all kinds of animal

poisons, and the dying man was, as if by a miracle, restored to life and

the power of speech. Now, since it is quite out of the question that the

bole could have anything to do with the result in this case,

notwithstanding Fracastoro's belief in its virtues, we can only account

for the cure by supposing, that a confidence in so great a physician

prevailed over this fatal disease of the imagination, which would

otherwise have yielded to scarcely any other remedy except the

tarantella. Ferdinando was acquainted with women who, for thirty years

in succession, had overcome the attacks of this disorder by a renewal of

their annual dance--so long did they maintain their belief in the yet

undestroyed poison of the tarantula's bite, and so long did that mental

affection continue to exist, after it had ceased to depend on any

corporeal excitement.

Wherever we turn, we find that this morbid state of mind prevailed, and

was so supported by the opinions of the age, that it needed only a

stimulus in the bite of the tarantula, and the supposed certainty of its

very disastrous consequences, to originate this violent nervous disorder.

Even in Ferdinando's time there were many who altogether denied the

poisonous effects of the tarantula's bite, whilst they considered the

disorder, which annually set Italy in commotion, to be a melancholy

depending on the imagination. They dearly expiated this scepticism,

however, when they were led, with an inconsiderate hardihood, to test

their opinions by experiment; for many of them became the subjects of

severe tarantism, and even a distinguished prelate, Jo. Baptist Quinzato,

Bishop of Foligno, having allowed himself, by way of a joke, to be bitten

by a tarantula, could obtain a cure in no other way than by being,

through the influence of the tarantella, compelled to dance. Others

among the clergy, who wished to shut their ears against music, because

they considered dancing derogatory to their station, fell into a

dangerous state of illness by thus delaying the crisis of the malady, and

were obliged at last to save themselves from a miserable death by

submitting to the unwelcome but sole means of cure. Thus it appears that

the age was so little favourable to freedom of thought, that even the

most decided sceptics, incapable of guarding themselves against the

recollection of what had been presented to the eye, were subdued by a

poison, the powers of which they had ridiculed, and which was in itself

inert in its effect.

SECT. 5--HYSTERIA

Different characteristics of the morbidly excited vitality having been

rendered prominent by tarantism in different individuals, it could not

but happen that other derangements of the nerves would assume the form of

this whenever circumstances favoured such a transition. This was more

especially the case with hysteria, that proteiform and mutable disorder,

in which the imaginations, the superstitions, and the follies of all ages

have been evidently reflected. The "Carnevaletto delle Donne" appeared

most opportunely for those who were hysterical. Their disease received

from it, as it had at other times from other extraordinary customs, a

peculiar direction; so that, whether bitten by the tarantula or not, they

felt compelled to participate in the dances of those affected, and to

make their appearance at this popular festival, where they had an

opportunity of triumphantly exhibiting their sufferings. Let us here

pause to consider the kind of life which the women in Italy led. Lonely,

and deprived by cruel custom of social intercourse, that fairest of all

enjoyments, they dragged on a miserable existence. Cheerfulness and an

inclination to sensual pleasures passed into compulsory idleness, and, in

many, into black despondency. Their imaginations became disordered--a

pallid countenance and oppressed respiration bore testimony to their

profound sufferings. How could they do otherwise, sunk as they were in

such extreme misery, than seize the occasion to burst forth from their

prisons and alleviate their miseries by taking part in the delights of

music? Nor should we here pass unnoticed a circumstance which

illustrates, in a remarkable degree, the psychological nature of

hysterical sufferings, namely, that many chlorotic females, by joining

the dancers at the Carnevaletto, were freed from their spasms and

oppression of breathing for the whole year, although the corporeal cause

of their malady was not removed. After such a result, no one could call

their self-deception a mere imposture, and unconditionally condemn it as

such.

This numerous class of patients certainly contributed not a little to the

maintenance of the evil, for their fantastic sufferings, in which

dissimulation and reality could scarcely be distinguished even by

themselves, much less by their physicians, were imitated in the same way

as the distortions of the St. Vitus's dancers by the impostors of that

period. It was certainly by these persons also that the number of

subordinate symptoms was increased to an endless extent, as may be

conceived from the daily observation of hysterical patients who, from a

morbid desire to render themselves remarkable, deviate from the laws of

moral propriety. Powerful sexual excitement had often the most decided

influence over their condition. Many of them exposed themselves in the

most indecent manner, tore their hair out by the roots, with howling and

gnashing of their teeth; and when, as was sometimes the case, their

unsatisfied passion hurried them on to a state of frenzy, they closed

their existence by self destruction; it being common at that time for

these unfortunate beings to precipitate themselves into the wells.

It might hence seem that, owing to the conduct of patients of this

description, so much of fraud and falsehood would be mixed up with the

original disorder that, having passed into another complaint, it must

have been itself destroyed. This, however, did not happen in the first

half of the seventeenth century; for, as a clear proof that tarantism

remained substantially the same and quite unaffected by hysteria, there

were in many places, and in particular at Messapia, fewer women affected

than men, who, in their turn, were in no small proportion led into

temptation by sexual excitement. In other places, as, for example, at

Brindisi, the case was reversed, which may, as in other complaints, be in

some measure attributable to local causes. Upon the whole it appears,

from concurrent accounts, that women by no means enjoyed the distinction

of being attacked by tarantism more frequently than men.

It is said that the cicatrix of the tarantula bite, on the yearly or half-

yearly return of the fit, became discoloured, but on this point the

distinct testimony of good observers is wanting to deprive the assertion

of its utter improbability.

It is not out of place to remark here that, about the same time that

tarantism attained its greatest height in Italy, the bite of venomous

spiders was more feared in distant parts of Asia likewise than it had

ever been within the memory of man. There was this difference,

however--that the symptoms supervening on the occurrence of this accident

were not accompanied by the Apulian nervous disorder, which, as has been

shown in the foregoing pages, had its origin rather in the melancholic

temperament of the inhabitants of the south of Italy than in the nature

of the tarantula poison itself. This poison is therefore, doubtless, to

be considered only as a remote cause of the complaint, which, but for

that temperament, would be inadequate to its production. The Persians

employed a very rough means of counteracting the bad consequences of a

poison of this sort. They drenched the wounded person with milk, and

then, by a violent rotatory motion in a suspended box, compelled him to

vomit.

SECT. 6--DECREASE

The Dancing Mania, arising from the tarantula bite, continued with all

those additions of self-deception and of the dissimulation which is such

a constant attendant on nervous disorders of this kind, through the whole

course of the seventeenth century. It was indeed, gradually on the

decline, but up to the termination of this period showed such

extraordinary symptoms that Baglivi, one of the best physicians of that

time, thought he did a service to science by making them the subject of a

dissertation. He repeats all the observations of Ferdinando, and

supports his own assertions by the experience of his father, a physician

at Lecce, whose testimony, as an eye-witness, may be admitted as

unexceptionable.

The immediate consequences of the tarantula bite, the supervening nervous

disorder, and the aberrations and fits of those who suffered from

hysteria, he describes in a masterly style, not does he ever suffer his

credulity to diminish the authenticity of his account, of which he has

been unjustly accused by later writers.

Finally, tarantism has declined more and more in modern times, and is now

limited to single cases. How could it possibly have maintained itself

unchanged in the eighteenth century, when all the links which connected

it with the Middle Ages had long since been snapped asunder? Imposture

grew more frequent, and wherever the disease still appeared in its

genuine form, its chief cause, namely, a peculiar cast of melancholy,

which formerly had been the temperament of thousands, was now possessed

only occasionally by unfortunate individuals. It might, therefore, not

unreasonably be maintained that the tarantism of modern times bears

nearly the same relation to the original malady as the St. Vitus's dance

which still exists, and certainly has all along existed, bears, in

certain cases, to the original dancing mania of the dancers of St. John.

To conclude. Tarantism, as a real disease, has been denied in toto, and

stigmatised as an imposition by most physicians and naturalists, who in

this controversy have shown the narrowness of their views and their utter

ignorance of history. In order to support their opinion they have

instituted some experiments apparently favourable to it, but under

circumstances altogether inapplicable, since, for the most part, they

selected as the subjects of them none but healthy men, who were totally

uninfluenced by a belief in this once so dreaded disease. From

individual instances of fraud and dissimulation, such as are found in

connection with most nervous affections without rendering their reality a

matter of any doubt, they drew a too hasty conclusion respecting the

general phenomenon, of which they appeared not to know that it had

continued for nearly four hundred years, having originated in the

remotest periods of the Middle Ages. The most learned and the most acute

among these sceptics is Serao the Neapolitan. His reasonings amount to

this, that he considers the disease to be a very marked form of

melancholia, and compares the effect of the tarantula bite upon it to

stimulating with spurs a horse which is already running. The reality of

that effect he thus admits, and, therefore, directly confirms what in

appearance only he denies. By shaking the already vacillating belief in

this disorder he is said to have actually succeeded in rendering it less

frequent, and in setting bounds to imposture; but this no more disproves

the reality of its existence than the oft repeated detection of

imposition has been able in modern times to banish magnetic sleep from

the circle of natural phenomena, though such detection has, on its side,

rendered more rare the incontestable effects of animal magnetism. Other

physicians and naturalists have delivered their sentiments on tarantism,

but as they have not possessed an enlarged knowledge of its history their

views do not merit particular exposition. It is sufficient for the

comprehension of everyone that we have presented the facts from all

extraneous speculation.

CHAPTER III--THE DANCING MANIA IN ABYSSINIA

SECT. 1--TIGRETIER

Both the St. Vitus's dance and tarantism belonged to the ages in which

they appeared. They could not have existed under the same latitude at

any other epoch, for at no other period were the circumstances which

prepared the way for them combined in a similar relation to each other,

and the mental as well as corporeal temperaments of nations, which depend

on causes such as have been stated, are as little capable of renewal as

the different stages of life in individuals. This gives so much the more

importance to a disease but cursorily alluded to in the foregoing pages,

which exists in Abyssinia, and which nearly resembles the original mania

of the St. John's dancers, inasmuch as it exhibits a perfectly similar

ecstasy, with the same violent effect on the nerves of motion. It occurs

most frequently in the Tigre country, being thence call Tigretier, and is

probably the same malady which is called in Ethiopian language

Astaragaza. On this subject we will introduce the testimony of Nathaniel

Pearce, an eye-witness, who resided nine years in Abyssinia. "The

Tigretier," he says he, "is more common among the women than among the

men. It seizes the body as if with a violent fever, and from that turns

to a lingering sickness, which reduces the patients to skeletons, and

often kills them if the relations cannot procure the proper remedy.

During this sickness their speech is changed to a kind of stuttering,

which no one can understand but those afflicted with the same disorder.

When the relations find the malady to be the real tigretier, they join

together to defray the expense of curing it; the first remedy they in

general attempt is to procure the assistance of a learned Dofter, who

reads the Gospel of St. John, and drenches the patient with cold water

daily for the space of seven days, an application that very often proves

fatal. The most effectual cure, though far more expensive than the

former, is as follows:--The relations hire for a certain sum of money a

band of trumpeters, drummers, and fifers, and buy a quantity of liquor;

then all the young men and women of the place assemble at the patient's

house to perform the following most extraordinary ceremony.

"I was once called in by a neighbour to see his wife, a very young woman,

who had the misfortune to be afflicted with this disorder; and the man

being an old acquaintance of mine, and always a close comrade in the

camp, I went every day, when at home, to see her, but I could not be of

any service to her, though she never refused my medicines. At this time

I could not understand a word she said, although she talked very freely,

nor could any of her relations understand her. She could not bear the

sight of a book or a priest, for at the sight of either she struggled,

and was apparently seized with acute agony, and a flood of tears, like

blood mingled with water, would pour down her face from her eyes. She

had lain three months in this lingering state, living upon so little that

it seemed not enough to keep a human body alive; at last her husband

agreed to employ the usual remedy, and, after preparing for the

maintenance of the band during the time it would take to effect the cure,

he borrowed from all his neighbours their silver ornaments, and loaded

her legs, arms and neck with them.

"The evening that the band began to play I seated myself close by her

side as she lay upon the couch, and about two minutes after the trumpets

had begun to sound I observed her shoulders begin to move, and soon

afterwards her head and breast, and in less than a quarter of an hour she

sat upon her couch. The wild look she had, though sometimes she smiled,

made me draw off to a greater distance, being almost alarmed to see one

nearly a skeleton move with such strength; her head, neck, shoulders,

hands and feet all made a strong motion to the sound of the music, and in

this manner she went on by degrees, until she stood up on her legs upon

the floor. Afterwards she began to dance, and at times to jump about,

and at last, as the music and noise of the singers increased, she often

sprang three feet from the ground. When the music slackened she would

appear quite out of temper, but when it became louder she would smile and

be delighted. During this exercise she never showed the least symptom of

being tired, though the musicians were thoroughly exhausted; and when

they stopped to refresh themselves by drinking and resting a little she

would discover signs of discontent.

"Next day, according to the custom in the cure of this disorder, she was

taken into the market-place, where several jars of maize or tsug were set

in order by the relations, to give drink to the musicians and dancers.

When the crowd had assembled, and the music was ready, she was brought

forth and began to dance and throw herself into the maddest postures

imaginable, and in this manner she kept on the whole day. Towards

evening she began to let fall her silver ornaments from her neck, arms,

and legs, one at a time, so that in the course of three hours she was

stripped of every article. A relation continually kept going after her

as she danced, to pick up the ornaments, and afterwards delivered them to

the owners from whom they were borrowed. As the sun went down she made a

start with such swiftness that the fastest runner could not come up with

her, and when at the distance of about two hundred yards she dropped on a

sudden as if shot. Soon afterwards a young man, on coming up with her,

fired a matchlock over her body, and struck her upon the back with the

broad side of his large knife, and asked her name, to which she answered

as when in her common senses--a sure proof of her being cured; for during

the time of this malady those afflicted with it never answer to their

Christian names. She was now taken up in a very weak condition and

carried home, and a priest came and baptised her again in the name of the

Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, which ceremony concluded her cure. Some are

taken in this manner to the market-place for many days before they can be

cured, and it sometimes happens that they cannot be cured at all. I have

seen them in these fits dance with a _bruly_, or bottle of maize, upon

their heads without spilling the liquor, or letting the bottle fall,

although they have put themselves into the most extravagant postures.

"I could not have ventured to write this from hearsay, nor could I

conceive it possible, until I was obliged to put this remedy in practice

upon my own wife, who was seized with the same disorder, and then I was

compelled to have a still nearer view of this strange disorder. I at

first thought that a whip would be of some service, and one day attempted

a few strokes when unnoticed by any person, we being by ourselves, and I

having a strong suspicion that this ailment sprang from the weak minds of

women, who were encouraged in it for the sake of the grandeur, rich

dress, and music which accompany the cure. But how much was I surprised,

the moment I struck a light blow, thinking to do good, to find that she

became like a corpse, and even the joints of her fingers became so stiff

that I could not straighten them; indeed, I really thought that she was

dead, and immediately made it known to the people in the house that she

had fainted, but did not tell them the cause, upon which they immediately

brought music, which I had for many days denied them, and which soon

revived her; and I then left the house to her relations to cure her at my

expense, in the manner I have before mentioned, though it took a much

longer time to cure my wife than the woman I have just given an account

of. One day I went privately, with a companion, to see my wife dance,

and kept at a short distance, as I was ashamed to go near the crowd. On

looking steadfastly upon her, while dancing or jumping, more like a deer

than a human being, I said that it certainly was not my wife; at which my

companion burst into a fit of laughter, from which he could scarcely

refrain all the way home. Men are sometimes afflicted with this dreadful

disorder, but not frequently. Among the Amhara and Galla it is not so

common."

Such is the account of Pearce, who is every way worthy of credit, and

whose lively description renders the traditions of former times

respecting the St. Vitus's dance and tarantism intelligible, even to

those who are sceptical respecting the existence of a morbid state of the

mind and body of the kind described, because, in the present advanced

state of civilisation among the nations of Europe, opportunities for its

development no longer occur. The credibility of this energetic but by no

means ambitious man is not liable to the slightest suspicion, for, owing

to his want of education, he had no knowledge of the phenomena in

question, and his work evinces throughout his attractive and unpretending

impartiality.

Comparison is the mother of observation, and may here elucidate one

phenomenon by another--the past by that which still exists. Oppression,

insecurity, and the influence of a very rude priestcraft, are the

powerful causes which operated on the Germans and Italians of the Middle

Ages, as they now continue to operate on the Abyssinians of the present

day. However these people may differ from us in their descent, their

manners and their customs, the effects of the above mentioned causes are

the same in Africa as they were in Europe, for they operate on man

himself independently of the particular locality in which he may be

planted; and the conditions of the Abyssinians of modern times is, in

regard to superstition, a mirror of the condition of the European nations

of the middle ages. Should this appear a bold assertion it will be

strengthened by the fact that in Abyssinia two examples of superstitions

occur which are completely in accordance with occurrences of the Middle

Ages that took place contemporarily with the dancing mania. _The

Abyssinians have their Christian flagellants, and there exists among them

a belief in a Zoomorphism, which presents a lively image of the

lycanthropy of the Middle Ages_. Their flagellants are called Zackarys.

They are united into a separate Christian fraternity, and make their

processions through the towns and villages with great noise and tumult,

scourging themselves till they draw blood, and wounding themselves with

knives. They boast that they are descendants of St. George. It is

precisely in Tigre, the country of the Abyssinian dancing mania, where

they are found in the greatest numbers, and where they have, in the

neighbourhood of Axum, a church of their own, dedicated to their patron

saint, _Oun Arvel_. Here there is an ever-burning lamp, and they

contrive to impress a belief that this is kept alight by supernatural

means. They also here keep a holy water, which is said to be a cure for

those who are affected by the dancing mania.

The Abyssinian Zoomorphism is a no less important phenomenon, and shows

itself a manner quite peculiar. The blacksmiths and potters form among

the Abyssinians a society or caste called in Tigre _Tebbib_, and in

Amhara _Buda_, which is held in some degree of contempt, and excluded

from the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, because it is believed that they

can change themselves into hyaenas and other beasts of prey, on which

account they are feared by everybody, and regarded with horror. They

artfully contrive to keep up this superstition, because by this

separation they preserve a monopoly of their lucrative trades, and as in

other respects they are good Christians (but few Jews or Mahomedans live

among them), they seem to attach no great consequence to their

excommunication. As a badge of distinction they wear a golden ear-ring,

which is frequently found in the ears of Hyaenas that are killed, without

its having ever been discovered how they catch these animals, so as to

decorate them with this strange ornament, and this removes in the minds

of the people all doubt as to the supernatural powers of the smiths and

potters. To the Budas is also ascribed the gift of enchantment,

especially that of the influence of the evil eye. They nevertheless live

unmolested, and are not condemned to the flames by fanatical priests, as

the lycanthropes were in the Middle Ages.

CHAPTER IV--SYMPATHY

Imitation--compassion--sympathy, these are imperfect designations for a

common bond of union among human beings--for an instinct which connects

individuals with the general body, which embraces with equal force reason

and folly, good and evil, and diminishes the praise of virtue as well as

the criminality of vice. In this impulse there are degrees, but no

essential differences, from the first intellectual efforts of the infant

mind, which are in a great measure based on imitation, to that morbid

condition of the soul in which the sensible impression of a nervous

malady fetters the mind, and finds its way through the eye directly to

the diseased texture, as the electric shock is propagated by contact from

body to body. To this instinct of imitation, when it exists in its

highest degree, is united a loss of all power over the will, which occurs

as soon as the impression on the senses has become firmly established,

producing a condition like that of small animals when they are fascinated

by the look of a serpent. By this mental bondage morbid sympathy is

clearly and definitely distinguished from all subordinate degrees of this

instinct, however closely allied the imitation of a disorder may seem to

be to that of a mere folly, of an absurd fashion, of an awkward habit in

speech and manner, or even of a confusion of ideas. Even these latter

imitations, however, directed as they are to foolish and pernicious

objects, place the self-independence of the greater portion of mankind in

a very doubtful light, and account for their union into a social whole.

Still more nearly allied to morbid sympathy than the imitation of

enticing folly, although often with a considerable admixture of the

latter, is the diffusion of violent excitements, especially those of a

religious or political character, which have so powerfully agitated the

nations of ancient and modern times, and which may, after an incipient

compliance, pass into a total loss of power over the will, and an actual

disease of the mind. Far be it from us to attempt to awaken all the

various tones of this chord, whose vibrations reveal the profound secrets

which lie hid in the inmost recesses of the soul. We might well want

powers adequate to so vast an undertaking. Our business here is only

with that morbid sympathy by the aid of which the dancing mania of the

Middle Ages grew into a real epidemic. In order to make this apparent by

comparison, it may not be out of place, at the close of this inquiry, to

introduce a few striking examples:--

1. "At a cotton manufactory at Hodden Bridge, in Lancashire, a girl, on

the fifteenth of February, 1787, put a mouse into the bosom of another

girl, who had a great dread of mice. The girl was immediately thrown

into a fit, and continued in it, with the most violent convulsions, for

twenty-four hours. On the following day three more girls were seized in

the same manner, and on the 17th six more. By this time the alarm was so

great that the whole work, in which 200 or 300 were employed, was totally

stopped, and an idea prevailed that a particular disease had been

introduced by a bag of cotton opened in the house. On Sunday the 18th,

Dr. St. Clare was sent for from Preston; before he arrived three more

were seized, and during that night and the morning of the 19th, eleven

more, making in all twenty-four. Of these, twenty-one were young women,

two were girls of about ten years of age, and one man, who had been much

fatigued with holding the girls. Three of the number lived about two

miles from the place where the disorder first broke out, and three at

another factory at Clitheroe, about five miles distant, which last and

two more were infected entirely from report, not having seen the other

patients, but, like them and the rest of the country, strongly impressed

with the idea of the plague being caught from the cotton. The symptoms

were anxiety, strangulation, and very strong convulsions; and these were

so violent as to last without any intermission from a quarter of an hour

to twenty-four hours, and to require four or five persons to prevent the

patients from tearing their hair and dashing their heads against the

floor or walls. Dr. St. Clare had taken with him a portable electrical

machine, and by electric shocks the patients were universally relieved

without exception. As soon as the patients and the country were assured

that the complaint was merely nervous, easily cured, and not introduced

by the cotton, no fresh person was affected. To dissipate their

apprehensions still further, the best effects were obtained by causing

them to take a cheerful glass and join in a dance. On Tuesday the 20th,

they danced, and the next day were all at work, except two or three, who

were much weakened by their fits."

The occurrence here described is remarkable on this account, that there

was no important predisposing cause for convulsions in these young women,

unless we consider as such their miserable and confined life in the work-

rooms of a spinning manufactory. It did not arise from enthusiasm, nor

is it stated that the patients had been the subject of any other nervous

disorders. In another perfectly analogous case, those attacked were all

suffering from nervous complaints, which roused a morbid sympathy in them

at the sight of a person seized with convulsions. This, together with

the supervention of hysterical fits, may aptly enough be compared to

tarantism.

2. "A young woman of the lowest order, twenty-one years of age, and of a

strong frame, came on the 13th of January, 1801, to visit a patient in

the Charite Hospital at Berlin, where she had herself been previously

under treatment for an inflammation of the chest with tetanic spasms, and

immediately on entering the ward, fell down in strong convulsions. At

the sight of her violent contortions six other female patients

immediately became affected in the same way, and by degrees eight more

were in like manner attacked with strong convulsions. All these patients

were from sixteen to twenty-five years of age, and suffered without

exception, one from spasms in the stomach, another from palsy, a third

from lethargy, a fourth from fits with consciousness, a fifth from

catalepsy, a sixth from syncope, &c. The convulsions, which alternated

in various ways with tonic spasms, were accompanied by loss of

sensibility, and were invariably preceded by languor with heavy sleep,

which was followed by the fits in the course of a minute or two; and it

is remarkable that in all these patients their former nervous disorders,

not excepting paralysis, disappeared, returning, however, after the

subsequent removal of their new complaint. The treatment, during the

course of which two of the nurses, who were young women, suffered similar

attacks, was continued for four months. It was finally successful, and

consisted principally in the administration of opium, at that time the

favourite remedy."

Now every species of enthusiasm, every strong affection, every violent

passion, may lead to convulsions--to mental disorders--to a concussion of

the nerves, from the sensorium to the very finest extremities of the

spinal chord. The whole world is full of examples of this afflicting

state of turmoil, which, when the mind is carried away by the force of a

sensual impression that destroys its freedom, is irresistibly propagated

by imitation. Those who are thus infected do not spare even their own

lives, but as a hunted flock of sheep will follow their leader and rush

over a precipice, so will whole hosts of enthusiasts, deluded by their

infatuation, hurry on to a self-inflicted death. Such has ever been the

case, from the days of the Milesian virgins to the modern associations

for self-destruction. Of all enthusiastic infatuations, however, that of

religion is the most fertile in disorders of the mind as well as of the

body, and both spread with the greatest facility by sympathy. The

history of the Church furnishes innumerable proofs of this, but we need

go no further than the most recent times.

3. In a methodist chapel at Redruth, a man during divine service cried

out with a loud voice, "What shall I do to be saved?" at the same time

manifesting the greatest uneasiness and solicitude respecting the

condition of his soul. Some other members of the congregation, following

his example, cried out in the same form of words, and seemed shortly

after to suffer the most excruciating bodily pain. This strange

occurrence was soon publicly known, and hundreds of people who had come

thither, either attracted by curiosity or a desire from other motives to

see the sufferers, fell into the same state. The chapel remained open

for some days and nights, and from that point the new disorder spread

itself, with the rapidity of lightning, over the neighbouring towns of

Camborne, Helston, Truro, Penryn and Falmouth, as well as over the

villages in the vicinity. Whilst thus advancing, it decreased in some

measure at the place where it had first appeared, and it confined itself

throughout to the Methodist chapels. It was only by the words which have

been mentioned that it was excited, and it seized none but people of the

lowest education. Those who were attacked betrayed the greatest anguish,

and fell into convulsions; others cried out, like persons possessed, that

the Almighty would straightway pour out His wrath upon them, that the

wailings of tormented spirits rang in their ears, and that they saw hell

open to receive them. The clergy, when in the course of their sermons

they perceived that persons were thus seized, earnestly exhorted them to

confess their sins, and zealously endeavoured to convince them that they

were by nature enemies to Christ; that the anger of God had therefore

fallen upon them; and that if death should surprise them in the midst of

their sins the eternal torments of hell would be their portion. The over-

excited congregation upon this repeated their words, which naturally must

have increased the fury of their convulsive attacks. When the discourse

had produced its full effect the preacher changed his subject; reminded

those who were suffering of the power of the Saviour, as well as of the

grace of God, and represented to them in glowing colours the joys of

heaven. Upon this a remarkable reaction sooner or later took place.

Those who were in convulsions felt themselves raised from the lowest

depths of misery and despair to the most exalted bliss, and triumphantly

shouted out that their bonds were loosed, their sins were forgiven, and

that they were translated to the wonderful freedom of the children of

God. In the meantime their convulsions continued, and they remained

during this condition so abstracted from every earthly thought that they

stayed two and sometimes three days and nights together in the chapels,

agitated all the time by spasmodic movements, and taking neither repose

nor nourishment. According to a moderate computation, 4,000 people were,

within a very short time, affected with this convulsive malady.

The course and symptoms of the attacks were in general as follows:--There

came on at first a feeling of faintness, with rigour and a sense of

weight at the pit of the stomach, soon after which the patient cried out,

as if in the agonies of death or the pains of labour. The convulsions

then began, first showing themselves in the muscles of the eyelids,

though the eyes themselves were fixed and staring. The most frightful

contortions of the countenance followed, and the convulsions now took

their course downwards, so that the muscles of the neck and trunk were

affected, causing a sobbing respiration, which was performed with great

effort. Tremors and agitation ensued, and the patients screamed out

violently, and tossed their heads about from side to side. As the

complaint increased it seized the arms, and its victims beat their

breasts, clasped their hands, and made all sorts of strange gestures. The

observer who gives this account remarked that the lower extremities were

in no instance affected. In some cases exhaustion came on in a very few

minutes, but the attack usually lasted much longer, and there were even

cases in which it was known to continue for sixty or seventy hours. Many

of those who happened to be seated when the attack commenced bent their

bodies rapidly backwards and forwards during its continuance, making a

corresponding motion with their arms, like persons sawing wood. Others

shouted aloud, leaped about, and threw their bodies into every possible

posture, until they had exhausted their strength. Yawning took place at

the commencement in all cases, but as the violence of the disorder

increased the circulation and respiration became accelerated, so that the

countenance assumed a swollen and puffed appearance. When exhaustion

came on patients usually fainted, and remained in a stiff and motionless

state until their recovery. The disorder completely resembled the St.

Vitus's dance, but the fits sometimes went on to an extraordinarily

violent extent, so that the author of the account once saw a woman who

was seized with these convulsions resist the endeavours of four or five

strong men to restrain her. Those patients who did not lose their

consciousness were in general made more furious by every attempt to quiet

them by force, on which account they were in general suffered to continue

unmolested until nature herself brought on exhaustion. Those affected

complained more or less of debility after the attacks, and cases

sometimes occurred in which they passed into other disorders; thus some

fell into a state of melancholy, which, however, in consequence of their

religious ecstasy, was distinguished by the absence of fear and despair;

and in one patient inflammation of the brain is said to have taken place.

No sex or age was exempt from this epidemic malady. Children five years

old and octogenarians were alike affected by it, and even men of the most

powerful frame were subject to its influence. Girls and young women,

however, were its most frequent victims.

4. For the last hundred years a nervous affection of a perfectly similar

kind has existed in the Shetland Islands, which furnishes a striking

example, perhaps the only one now existing, of the very lasting

propagation by sympathy of this species of disorders. The origin of the

malady was very insignificant. An epileptic woman had a fit in church,

and whether it was that the minds of the congregation were excited by

devotion, or that, being overcome at the sight of the strong convulsions,

their sympathy was called forth, certain it is that many adult women, and

even children, some of whom were of the male sex, and not more than six

years old, began to complain forthwith of palpitation, followed by

faintness, which passed into a motionless and apparently cataleptic

condition. These symptoms lasted more than an hour, and probably

recurred frequently. In the course of time, however, this malady is said

to have undergone a modification, such as it exhibits at the present day.

Women whom it has attacked will suddenly fall down, toss their arms

about, writhe their bodies into various shapes, move their heads suddenly

from side to side, and with eyes fixed and staring, utter the most dismal

cries. If the fit happen on any occasion of pubic diversion, they will,

as soon as it has ceased, mix with their companions and continue their

amusement as if nothing had happened. Paroxysms of this kind used to

prevail most during the warm months of summer, and about fifty years ago

there was scarcely a Sabbath in which they did not occur. Strong

passions of the mind, induced by religious enthusiasm, are also exciting

causes of these fits, but like all such false tokens of divine workings,

they are easily encountered by producing in the patient a different frame

of mind, and especially by exciting a sense of shame: thus those affected

are under the control of any sensible preacher, who knows how to

"administer to a mind diseased," and to expose the folly of voluntarily

yielding to a sympathy so easily resisted, or of inviting such attacks by

affectation. An intelligent and pious minister of Shetland informed the

physician, who gives an account of this disorder as an eye-witness, that

being considerably annoyed on his first introduction into the country by

these paroxysms, whereby the devotions of the church were much impeded,

he obviated their repetition by assuring his parishioners that no

treatment was more effectual than immersion in cold water; and as his

kirk was fortunately contiguous to a freshwater lake, he gave notice that

attendants should be at hand during divine service to ensure the proper

means of cure. The sequel need scarcely be told. The fear of being

carried out of the church, and into the water, acted like a charm; not a

single Naiad was made, and the worthy minister for many years had reason

to boast of one of the best regulated congregations in Scotland. As the

physician above alluded to was attending divine service in the kirk of

Baliasta, on the Isle of Unst, a female shriek, the indication of a

convulsion fit, was heard; the minister, Mr. Ingram, of Fetlar, very

properly stopped his discourse until the disturber was removed; and after

advising all those who thought they might be similarly affected to leave

the church, he gave out in the meantime a psalm. The congregation was

thus preserved from further interruption; yet the effect of sympathy was

not prevented, for as the narrator of the account was leaving the church

he saw several females writhing and tossing about their arms on the green

grass, who durst not, for fear of a censure from the pulpit, exhibit

themselves after this manner within the sacred walls of the kirk.

In the production of this disorder, which no doubt still exists,

fanaticism certainly had a smaller share than the irritable state of

women out of health, who only needed excitement, no matter of what kind,

to throw them into prevailing nervous paroxysms. When, however, that

powerful cause of nervous disorders takes the lead, we find far more

remarkable symptoms developed, and it then depends on the mental

condition of the people among whom they appear whether in their spread

they shall take a narrow or an extended range--whether confined to some

small knot of zealots they are to vanish without a trace, or whether they

are to attain even historical importance.

5. The appearance of the _Convulsionnaires_ in France, whose

inhabitants, from the greater mobility of their blood, have in general

been the less liable to fanaticism, is in this respect instructive and

worthy of attention. In the year 1727 there died in the capital of that

country the Deacon Paris, a zealous opposer of the Ultramontanists,

division having arisen in the French Church on account of the bull

"Unigenitus." People made frequent visits to his tomb in the cemetery of

St. Medard, and four years afterwards (in September, 1731) a rumour was

spread that miracles took place there. Patients were seized with

convulsions and tetanic spasms, rolled upon the ground like persons

possessed, were thrown into violent contortions of their heads and limbs,

and suffered the greatest oppression, accompanied by quickness and

irregularity of pulse. This novel occurrence excited the greatest

sensation all over Paris, and an immense concourse of people resorted

daily to the above-named cemetery in order to see so wonderful a

spectacle, which the Ultramontanists immediately interpreted as a work of

Satan, while their opponents ascribed it to a divine influence. The

disorder soon increased, until it produced, in nervous women,

_clairvoyance_ (_Schlafwachen_), a phenomenon till then unknown; for one

female especially attracted attention, who, blindfold, and, as it was

believed, by means of the sense of smell, read every writing that was

placed before her, and distinguished the characters of unknown persons.

The very earth taken from the grave of the Deacon was soon thought to

possess miraculous power. It was sent to numerous sick persons at a

distance, whereby they were said to have been cured, and thus this

nervous disorder spread far beyond the limits of the capital, so that at

one time it was computed that there were more than eight hundred decided

Convulsionnaires, who would hardly have increased so much in numbers had

not Louis XV directed that the cemetery should be closed. The disorder

itself assumed various forms, and augmented by its attacks the general

excitement. Many persons, besides suffering from the convulsions, became

the subjects of violent pain, which required the assistance of their

brethren of the faith. On this account they, as well as those who

afforded them aid, were called by the common title of _Secourists_. The

modes of relief adopted were remarkably in accordance with those which

were administered to the St. John's dancers and the Tarantati, and they

were in general very rough; for the sufferers were beaten and goaded in

various parts of the body with stones, hammers, swords, clubs, &c., of

which treatment the defenders of this extraordinary sect relate the most

astonishing examples in proof that severe pain is imperatively demanded

by nature in this disorder as an effectual counter-irritant. The

Secourists used wooden clubs in the same manner as paviors use their

mallets, and it is stated that some _Convulsionnaires_ have borne daily

from six to eight thousand blows thus inflicted without danger. One

Secourist administered to a young woman who was suffering under spasm of

the stomach the most violent blows on that part, not to mention other

similar cases which occurred everywhere in great numbers. Sometimes the

patients bounded from the ground, impelled by the convulsions, like fish

when out of water; and this was so frequently imitated at a later period

that the women and girls, when they expected such violent contortions,

not wishing to appear indecent, put on gowns make like sacks, closed at

the feet. If they received any bruises by falling down they were healed

with earth from the grave of the uncanonised saint. They usually,

however, showed great agility in this respect, and it is scarcely

necessary to remark that the female sex especially was distinguished by

all kinds of leaping and almost inconceivable contortions of body. Some

spun round on their feet with incredible rapidity, as is related of the

dervishes; others ran their heads against walls, or curved their bodies

like rope-dancers, so that their heels touched their shoulders.

All this degenerated at length into decided insanity. A certain

Convulsionnaire, at Vernon, who had formerly led rather a loose course of

life, employed herself in confessing the other sex; in other places women

of this sect were seen imposing exercises of penance on priests, during

which these were compelled to kneel before them. Others played with

children's rattles, or drew about small carts, and gave to these childish

acts symbolical significations. One Convulsionnaire even made believe to

shave her chin, and gave religious instruction at the same time, in order

to imitate Paris, the worker of miracles, who, during this operation, and

whilst at table, was in the habit of preaching. Some had a board placed

across their bodies, upon which a whole row of men stood; and as, in this

unnatural state of mind, a kind of pleasure is derived from excruciating

pain, some too were seen who caused their bosoms to be pinched with

tongs, while others, with gowns closed at the feet, stood upon their

heads, and remained in that position longer than would have been possible

had they been in health. Pinault, the advocate, who belonged to this

sect, barked like a dog some hours every day, and even this found

imitation among the believers.

The insanity of the Convulsionnaires lasted without interruption until

the year 1790, and during these fifty-nine years called forth more

lamentable phenomena that the enlightened spirits of the eighteenth

century would be willing to allow. The grossest immorality found in the

secret meetings of the believers a sure sanctuary, and in their

bewildering devotional exercises a convenient cloak. It was of no avail

that, in the year 1762, the Grand Secours was forbidden by act of

parliament; for thenceforth this work was carried on in secrecy, and with

greater zeal than ever; it was in vain, too, that some physicians, and

among the rest the austere, pious Hecquet, and after him Lorry,

attributed the conduct of the Convulsionnaires to natural causes. Men of

distinction among the upper classes, as, for instance, Montgeron the

deputy, and Lambert an ecclesiastic (obt. 1813), stood forth as the

defenders of this sect; and the numerous writings which were exchanged on

the subject served, by the importance which they thus attached to it, to

give it stability. The revolution finally shook the structure of this

pernicious mysticism. It was not, however, destroyed; for even during

the period of the greatest excitement the secret meetings were still kept

up; prophetic books, by Convulsionnaires of various denominations, have

appeared even in the most recent times, and only a few years ago (in

1828) this once celebrated sect still existed, although without the

convulsions and the extraordinarily rude aid of the brethren of the

faith, which, amidst the boasted pre-eminence of French intellectual

advancement, remind us most forcibly of the dark ages of the St. John's

dancers.

6. Similar fanatical sects exhibit among all nations of ancient and

modern times the same phenomena. An overstrained bigotry is in itself,

and considered in a medical point of view, a destructive irritation of

the senses, which draws men away from the efficiency of mental freedom,

and peculiarly favours the most injurious emotions. Sensual ebullitions,

with strong convulsions of the nerves, appear sooner or later, and

insanity, suicidal disgust of life, and incurable nervous disorders, are

but too frequently the consequences of a perverse, and, indeed,

hypocritical zeal, which has ever prevailed, as well in the assemblies of

the Maenades and Corybantes of antiquity as under the semblance of

religion among the Christians and Mahomedans.

There are some denominations of English Methodists which surpass, if

possible, the French Convulsionnaires; and we may here mention in

particular the Jumpers, among whom it is still more difficult than in the

example given above to draw the line between religious ecstasy and a

perfect disorder of the nerves; sympathy, however, operates perhaps more

perniciously on them than on other fanatical assemblies. The sect of

Jumpers was founded in the year 1760, in the county of Cornwall, by two

fanatics, who were, even at that time, able to collect together a

considerable party. Their general doctrine is that of the Methodists,

and claims our consideration here only in so far as it enjoins them

during their devotional exercises to fall into convulsions, which they

are able to effect in the strangest manner imaginable. By the use of

certain unmeaning words they work themselves up into a state of religious

frenzy, in which they seem to have scarcely any control over their

senses. They then begin to jump with strange gestures, repeating this

exercise with all their might until they are exhausted, so that it not

unfrequently happens that women who, like the Maenades, practise these

religious exercises, are carried away from the midst of them in a state

of syncope, whilst the remaining members of the congregations, for miles

together, on their way home, terrify those whom they meet by the sight of

such demoniacal ravings. There are never more than a few ecstatics, who,

by their example, excite the rest to jump, and these are followed by the

greatest part of the meeting, so that these assemblages of the Jumpers

resemble for hours together the wildest orgies, rather than congregations

met for Christian edification.

In the United States of North America communities of Methodists have

existed for the last sixty years. The reports of credible witnesses of

their assemblages for divine service in the open air (camp meetings), to

which many thousands flock from great distances, surpass, indeed, all

belief; for not only do they there repeat all the insane acts of the

French Convulsionnaires and of the English Jumpers, but the disorder of

their minds and of their nerves attains at these meetings a still greater

height. Women have been seen to miscarry whilst suffering under the

state of ecstasy and violent spasms into which they are thrown, and

others have publicly stripped themselves and jumped into the rivers. They

have swooned away by hundreds, worn out with ravings and fits; and of the

Barkers, who appeared among the Convulsionnaires only here and there, in

single cases of complete aberration of intellect, whole bands are seen

running on all fours, and growling as if they wished to indicate, even by

their outward form, the shocking degradation of their human nature. At

these camp-meetings the children are witnesses of this mad infatuation,

and as their weak nerves are with the greatest facility affected by

sympathy, they, together with their parents, fall into violent fits,

though they know nothing of their import, and many of them retain for

life some severe nervous disorder which, having arisen from fright and

excessive excitement, will not afterwards yield to any medical treatment.

But enough of these extravagances, which even in our now days embitter

the lives of so many thousands, and exhibit to the world in the nineteenth

century the same terrific form of mental disturbance as the St. Vitus's

dance once did to the benighted nations of the Middle Ages.