mania of the
Middle Ages grew into a real epidemic. In order to make this apparent by
comparison, it may not be out of place, at the close of this inquiry, to
introduce a few striking examples:--

1. "At a cotton manufactory at Hodden Bridge, in Lancashire, a girl, on
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."

The occurre