of Unst, a female shriek, the indication of a
convulsion fit, was heard; the minister, Mr. Ingram, of Fetlar, very
properly stopped his discourse until the disturber was removed; and after
advising all those who thought they might be similarly affected to leave
the church, he gave out in the meantime a psalm. The congregation was
thus preserved from further interruption; yet the effect of sympathy was
not prevented, for as the narrator of the account was leaving the church
he saw several females writhing and tossing about their arms on the green
grass, who durst not, for fear of a censure from the pulpit, exhibit
themselves after this manner within the sacred walls of the kirk.

In the production of this disorder, which no doubt still exists,
fanaticism certainly had a smaller share than the irritable state of
women out of health, who only needed excitement, no matter of what kind,
to throw them into prevailing nervous paroxysms. When, however, that
powerful cause of nervous disorders takes the lead, we find far more
remarkable symptoms developed, and it then depends on the mental
condition of the people among whom they appear whether in their spread
they shall take a narrow or an extended range--whether confined to some
small knot of zealots they are to vanish without a trace, or whether they
are to attain even historical importance.

5. The appearance of the _Convulsionnaires_ in France, whose
inhabitants, from the greater mobility of their blood, have in general
been the less liable to fanaticism, is in this respect instructive and
worthy of attention. In the year 1727 there died in the capital of that
country the Deacon Paris, a zealous opposer of the Ultramontanists,
division having arisen in the French Church on account of the bull
"Unigenitus." People made frequent visits to his tomb in the cemetery of
St. Medard, and four years afterwards (in September, 1731) a rumour was
spread that miracles took place there. Patients were seized with
convulsions and tetanic spasms, rolled upon the ground like persons
possessed, were thrown into violent contortions of their heads and limbs,
and suffered the greatest oppression, accompanied by quickness and
irregularity of pulse. This novel occurrence excited the greatest
sensation all over Paris, and an immense concourse of people resorted
daily to the above-named cemetery in order to see so wonderful a
spectacle, which the Ultramontanists immediately interpreted as a w