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.
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