The Epidemics of the Middle Ages by J. F. C. Hecker and John Caius
1. “At a cotton manufactory at Hodden Bridge, in Lancashire, a girl, on
488 words | Chapter 29
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.”[325]
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 subjects
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.
Reading Tips
Use arrow keys to navigate
Press 'N' for next chapter
Press 'P' for previous chapter