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.
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