nce 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. At
the sight of her violent contortions six other female patients
immediately became affected in the same way, and by degrees eight more
were in like manner attacked with strong convulsions. All these patients
were from sixteen to twenty-five years of age, and suffered without
exception, one from spasms in the stomach, another from palsy, a third
from lethargy, a fourth from fits with consciousness, a fifth from
catalepsy, a sixth from syncope, &c. The convulsions, which alternated
in various ways with tonic spasms, were accompanied by loss of
sensibility, and were invariably preceded by languor with heavy sleep,
which was followed by the fits in the course of a minute or two; and it
is remarkable that in all these patients their former nervous disorders,
not excepting paralysis, disappeared, returning, however, after the
subsequent removal of their new complaint. The treatment, during the
course of which two of the nurses, who were young women, suffered similar
attacks, was continued for four months. It was finally successful, and
consisted principally in the administration of opium, at that time the
favourite remedy."

Now every species of enthusiasm, every strong affection, every violent
passion, may lead to convulsions--to mental disorders--to a concussion of
the nerves, from the sensorium to the very finest extremities of the
spinal chord. The whole world is full of examples of this afflicting
state of turmoil, which,