Group dancing, collective laughter… are some of the mysterious “epidemics” that have occurred in various places throughout world history, which scientists are still trying to explain.
What is Mass Hysteria?
Mass hysteria, now commonly referred to as conversion disorder, is a term used to describe situations where a large group of people exhibits similar physical and psychological symptoms. These symptoms can spread rapidly throughout a community, and in some cases, can extend to other cities or even nationwide.
Hysteria is a mental and neurological disorder. It arises from excessive anxiety, manifesting as extreme excitability and uncontrollable emotions. Hysteria often results from suppressed inner conflict…
This disorder can affect both genders, with a frequency of about 3 to 5 individuals per 1,000 people. It is more commonly observed in girls aged 14-25 due to their predisposition to the condition.
Hysteria is a mental and neurological disorder.
Mass hysteria describes situations where physical or psychological symptoms appear en masse, spreading rapidly throughout communities and sometimes affecting entire cities and nations.
During outbreaks, individuals may laugh uncontrollably, faint, experience seizures, dizziness, muscle weakness, or other symptoms that seem to lack any tangible cause. Cases of mass hysteria have been reported around the world for centuries, providing fascinating insights into the complex nature of human psychology.
Here are some of the most mysterious mass hysteria incidents in human history:
1. The “Dancing Plague” of 1518
It all began on a summer day in Strasbourg, France, in 1518. Frau Troffea, a citizen of the city, began dancing uncontrollably for nearly a week. Within a month, 400 residents of this eastern French city were driven to dance incessantly until they collapsed from strokes, heart attacks, or exhaustion.
The state of these individuals resembled hypnosis. Initially, authorities believed the cause was due to “hot blood in the brain,” but they ordered the reluctant dancers to continue dancing day and night as a cure to exorcise the demons within them, even setting up stages and hiring additional dancers and musicians. This only worsened the situation. Variants of the “dancing plague” in France later spread to Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland…
Some historians suggest that these individuals may have accidentally consumed ergot, a toxic mold that causes muscle spasms—but this does not explain why they danced for such an extended period. Others believe the cause was the stress of disease and famine plaguing the region, along with a group of people believing in the “curse of the dance.”
The Dancing Plague, also known as the Dance Epidemic, the Dance of Saint John, or the Dance of Saint Vitus, spread across Europe from the 13th to the 17th centuries.
The Salem Witch Trials (1692–1693)
One of the most famous cases of mass hysteria occurred in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692. Dozens of young girls exhibited uncontrollable fits of screaming and contorting, eventually leading to a series of witchcraft accusations. This resulted in a series of trials and prosecutions of those accused of witchcraft, known as the Salem Witch Trials, leading to the deaths of 25 citizens from Salem and neighboring towns.
The Biting Nuns (15th Century)
In the 15th century, another outbreak of mass hysteria occurred in Germany when a nun in a convent began biting others. Soon, this behavior spread throughout the convent, and as news spread further, the phenomenon escalated, leading to outbreaks of biting in convents across Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy.
According to a 15th-century doctor: “A nun in a convent in Germany bit all her companions. In a short time, all the nuns in this convent began to bite each other. News of this obsession among the nuns spread quickly, and now it had transferred from this convent to others across a large part of Germany, mainly Saxony, and then to convents in the Netherlands, and eventually, nuns even suffered from biting mania as far as Rome.”
2. The “Writing Epidemic” of 1892
In 1892, the hands of several schoolgirls in Groß Tinz, Germany, began to shake uncontrollably while writing. Some experienced memory loss and altered consciousness. The following year, students in Basel, Switzerland, began experiencing similar symptoms.
Dr. Bartholomew stated: “The hand tremors while writing in Europe after the 19th century were a direct result of a new teaching method that treated the mind as a muscle that needed to be trained. The tedious and repetitive exercises physically harmed the students. Therefore, the illness broke out as an attempt to escape the dreadful writing class in their subconscious.”
3. The Mattoon Gas Panic of 1944
During the height of paranoia in World War II, the town of Mattoon, Illinois, was flooded with rumors of a mysterious man spraying gas on random victims.
The first victim was Aline Kearney. According to her account, that day, there was a “sickly sweet smell” in her bedroom that left her legs and lower body paralyzed. When Kearney’s husband returned home from work, he saw a stranger outside their house.
The Kearney family’s story made the front page of the local newspaper, which claimed it was an “anesthetic doctor” living outside the law. Soon, the entire town was flooded with reports of similar incidents. News of the mysterious assailant caused public panic for a while, but the attacker was never found.
4. The June Bug Epidemic of 1962
In June 1962, 60 workers at a textile factory in the U.S. began experiencing strange symptoms: rashes, nausea, and paralysis. The media quickly picked up the story, dubbing it the “June Bug Epidemic.” According to the workers, an insect had infected them with a plague. However, entomologists sent to the scene found no traces of the bugs.
In 1962, a mysterious illness broke out in the garment department of a textile factory in the U.S. Symptoms included numbness, nausea, dizziness, and vomiting. Information about a bug in the factory that would bite its victims and cause these symptoms quickly spread. Before long, 62 workers had contracted this mysterious illness, with some needing hospitalization.
Meanwhile, psychologists interviewed the affected workers. Results showed that over 90% of the victims worked the same shift, most worked overtime, and 50 of them only began reporting their symptoms after the media had reported on the outbreak. From this, some suggested that stress, combined with the power of rumors, could have caused a large number of people to self-diagnose with the “illness.”
5. The “Laughing Epidemic” of Tanganyika (Tanzania) in 1962
In 1962, Tanzania experienced a strange “epidemic” that forced schools to close for several weeks as dozens of schoolgirls were unable to stop laughing. By the end of the outbreak, more than 1,000 people were affected.
Laughter was not the only issue; many other stressed students exhibited rashes, fainting, and difficulty breathing. The official diagnosis for this case was mass hysteria.
