Page:The Galaxy, Volume 6.djvu/530

496 by these unfortunate women did not vary materially from those shown by their hysterical sisters of the present day. Thus it is stated, that in 1550 to 1565, a nervous malady prevailed in the convent of Yvertet, in Holland, which was characterized by convulsive spasms of the trunk and limbs, and singular hallucinations.

How accurately this description represents the symptoms exhibited by those who, in our own day, have had their nervous systems unstrung by camp meeting or revival preachers, and who have embraced religion through the fear that they were about to be delivered over to the powers of darkness!

Other similar epidemics prevailed outside of the. convents, and are supposed to have been induced by the wars, pestilences, famines and religious excitements of the day. Thus there was an epidemic dancing mania that swept over Germany during the latter part of the fourteenth century, affecting persons of both sexes. The disorder was called "St. Vitus's Dance," from the notion that this saint was better able to cure it than any other. The disease at present called chorea is still popularly known by his name.

The earliest symptoms manifested by these dancers were generally of a convulsive nature, such as twitchings of the limbs, an irresistible impulse to bound, to leap, to dance, or to start off at full speed and run through the fields as if chased by sportsmen and dogs. After exerting themselves in this manner till they were thoroughly exhausted, they fell into a trance, during which they were insensible to pain and sounds, but in which they frequently became convulsed, foaming at the mouth, agitating their limbs and distorting their features. Others had ecstacies and visions, during which they conversed with angels and enjoyed all the happiness of heaven. When these periods of ecstatic bliss passed away, the sufferers experienced the most severe internal pain, attended with oppression of the chest and a sense of sinking, as if all vital energy had disappeared. (Madden.)

Then there were "Flagellants," who went through the world lashing themselves till the blood flowed in streams down their miserable bodies. One of them, St. Dominic Loricatus, was so enthusiastic and laborious that he was invoked to excite all his fellows. The debt due by each was 3,000 stripes a year, but St. Dominic discharged the obligation of a century—300,000 stripes—in six days. The Abbé Boileau, in his "Historia Flagellantium," gives a full account of these curious delusionists.