Monday 19 November 2012

Morgellon's, Messiahs and Mass Hysteria.


Over the course of the last 14 months, 15 people (mostly teen-aged girls) in the town of LeRoy in New York State developed Tourette's-like twitches and vocalizations. After an exhaustive series of diagnosis, it was concluded that these occurrences were most likely the result of conversion disorder.
Conversion disorder, formally known as hysteria, is a psychiatric disorder that causes sufferers to display neurological-like symptoms of twitching, fits and spams
An example of Jerusalem syndrome ©Wikimedia Commons; Image Credit: Ja
This is looked into in the Channel 4 documentary "The Town That Caught Tourette's". Many of the girls felt let down by the diagnosis, thinking "this can't all be in my head" and sort out other, even less probable answers.
There are many cases throughout history and the modern world of similar occurrences and there are many more diseases and disorders that we are yet to understand. Here I am going to have a look at some of the odder cases:

Morgellon's Disease

First reported in the 17th century by the physician Thomas Browne, Morgellon's exhibits as aches, faitigue, skin lesion and the sensation that insects or fungal roots are growing beneath the skin. Fibers are "seen" to be growing beneath the skin surface.
The disease has shown a sudden boom, thought to be due to the internet - a meme sickness as it were. However, in recent months, researchers and doctors have begun to report strange findings within the skin of sufferers, possible markers of an actual fungal infection. Cases have also now begun to be reported in infant children who are not normally susceptible to psychosomatic disease.
Whether or not Morgellon's is an actual disease or a "delusional parasitosis" - a case of the brain becoming convinced of an infection - is still up in the air.

Alice in Wonderland Syndrome

Also known as the less catchy Todd's Syndrome, this is a disorder that affects the mind's concept of perception. The visual cortex stops being able to process scale, thus larger things seem small and vice versa. Sufferers report feeling taller than a tree or too small to reach up and sit on a chair.
Normally temporary (an episode can last anywhere from one minute to a whole day), and presenting mostly in migraine sufferers and young children, this syndrome could give us interesting insights into how the brain deals with self-perception and scale.

"Strawberries With Sugar virus"

Back in 2006, in an episode of the popular Portuguese teen show "Strawberries With Sugar", the characters and their school were struck by a life threatening virus. Shortly after, over 300 pupils at 14 separate schools came down with dizziness, rashes and shortness of breath, all symptoms of the fictional disease.
Many of the schools were forced to temporarily shut down and, coincidentally, reschedule some state exams that were meant to be occurring.
After much investigation, the Portuguese National Institute for Medical Emergency concluded that the cases were simply doe to mass hysteria.

Jerusalem Syndrome

An odd phenomenon has been seen in tourists visiting the city of Jerusalem; people, normally middle-aged men, who have lived their lives otherwise perfectly normally spend time in the city and suddenly begin to dress in old bed sheets and declare that they are John the Baptist.
That is a vast over simplification, but Jerusalem Syndrome is a well-studied occurrence with vast numbers of tourists every year suffering from religious psychosis and delusions that evaporate as soon as they are removed from the city.
The syndrome even got a mention in The Simpsons; in The Greatest Story Ever D'ohed, the family visit Jerusalem and Homer becomes convinced that he is the Messiah.

Dancing Plague of 1518

An oldie but a goodie. the Dancing Plague began in Strasbourg as a woman named Frau Troffea began to dance in the street. She didn't stop moving until she died of exhaustion and dehydration four days later. By that point, 30 or so people had joined her and by a month later over 400 dancers were out in the street. Many of the afflicted died from heart failure or strokes.
Records documenting the dancing deaths make it very clear that this was not twitching, or convulsing, but "although they were entranced, their arms and legs were moving as if they were purposefully dancing".
Over the last 490 years, many explanations have been offered. Everything from divine inspiration to ergot poisoning (think the organic version of LSD) has been blamed.
Most likely though, this is another case of mass hysteria and stress-induced psychosis. These people had been living in famine conditions for at least 7 months and in an area riddled with disease and horrific living conditions, it is possible that something just snapped in the population as a whole.




Published in The Yorker November 17th, 2012