by these unfortunate women did not vary materially from those shown by their hysterical sisters of the present day. Thus it is stated, that in 1550 to 1565, a nervous malady prevailed in the convent of Yvertet, in Holland, which was characterized by convulsive spasms of the trunk and limbs, and singular hallucinations.
The afflicted members of the community were seized with violent fits of fear and sadness, and paroxysms of an hysterical kind, with sudden bursts of irrepressible laughter, and subsequent attacks of depression and despondency. They appeared sometimes as if they had been dragged from their beds along the ground; at other times they suddenly jumped from the floor and then fell down flat and with considerable force. They were occasionally deprived of speech, and when they fell to the ground, remained there as if they were wholly unconscious. But at times they rose suddenly from a state of immobility, with such muscular energy that it was with the greatest difficulty they could be restrained. They rose up by sudden bounds, and then fell as suddenly down again in a frightful manner.[1]
How accurately this description represents the symptoms exhibited by those who, in our own day, have had their nervous systems unstrung by camp meeting or revival preachers, and who have embraced religion through the fear that they were about to be delivered over to the powers of darkness!
Other similar epidemics prevailed outside of the. convents, and are supposed to have been induced by the wars, pestilences, famines and religious excitements of the day. Thus there was an epidemic dancing mania that swept over Germany during the latter part of the fourteenth century, affecting persons of both sexes. The disorder was called "St. Vitus's Dance," from the notion that this saint was better able to cure it than any other. The disease at present called chorea is still popularly known by his name.
The earliest symptoms manifested by these dancers were generally of a convulsive nature, such as twitchings of the limbs, an irresistible impulse to bound, to leap, to dance, or to start off at full speed and run through the fields as if chased by sportsmen and dogs. After exerting themselves in this manner till they were thoroughly exhausted, they fell into a trance, during which they were insensible to pain and sounds, but in which they frequently became convulsed, foaming at the mouth, agitating their limbs and distorting their features. Others had ecstacies and visions, during which they conversed with angels and enjoyed all the happiness of heaven. When these periods of ecstatic bliss passed away, the sufferers experienced the most severe internal pain, attended with oppression of the chest and a sense of sinking, as if all vital energy had disappeared. (Madden.)
Then there were "Flagellants," who went through the world lashing themselves till the blood flowed in streams down their miserable bodies. One of them, St. Dominic Loricatus, was so enthusiastic and laborious that he was invoked to excite all his fellows. The debt due by each was 3,000 stripes a year, but St. Dominic discharged the obligation of a century—300,000 stripes—in six days. The Abbé Boileau, in his "Historia Flagellantium,"[2] gives a full account of these curious delusionists.
- ↑ "Phantasmata; or Illusions and Fanaticisms, etc." By R. R. Madden. London, 1857: Vol. ii., p. 239.
- ↑ This work is very rare. The full title is, "Historia Flagellantium de Recto et Perverso Flagrorum usu apud Christianis. Parisiis: apud I. Anisson, Typographiæ Regiæ Præfectum. MDCC." A free translation into English, with numerous additions and comments and several steel plates, was published in London in 1783—at least that is the date of the second edition, now before me. This translation is attributed to De Lolme.
