No
sex or age was exempt from this epidemic malady. Children five
years old and octogenarians were alike affected by it, and even
men of the most powerful frame were subject to its influence.
Girls and young women, however, were its most frequent victims.
4. For the last hundred years a nervous affection of a perfectly
similar kind has existed in the Shetland Islands, which furnishes
a striking example, perhaps the only one now existing, of the very
lasting propagation by sympathy of this species of disorders. The
origin of the malady was very insignificant. An epileptic woman
had a fit in church, and whether it was that the minds of the
congregation were excited by devotion, or that, being overcome at
the sight of the strong convulsions, their sympathy was called
forth, certain it is that many adult women, and even children,
some of whom were of the male sex, and not more than six years
old, began to complain forthwith of palpitation, followed by
faintness, which passed into a motionless and apparently
cataleptic condition. These symptoms lasted more than an hour,
and probably recurred frequently. In the course of time, however,
this malady is said to have undergone a modification, such as it
exhibits at the present day.
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