On Anna Renata there is a striking essay by the late Johannes Scherr, in his Hammerschlage und Historien.

On the general subject of hysteria thus developed, see the writings of Carpenter and Tuke; and as to its natural development in nunneries, see Maudsley, Responsibility in Mental Disease, p.9.Especial attention will be paid to this in the chapter on Diabolism and Hysteria.
The same thing was seen among young women exposed to sundry fanatical Protestant preachers.

Insanity, both temporary and permanent, was thus frequently developed among the Huguenots of France, and has been thus produced in America, from the days of the Salem persecution down to the "camp meetings" of the present time.( 373) (373) This branch of the subject will be discussed more at length in a future chapter.
At various times, from the days of St.Agobard of Lyons in the ninth century to Pomponatius in the sixteenth, protests or suggestions, more or less timid, had been made by thoughtful men against this system.
Medicine had made some advance toward a better view, but the theological torrent had generally overwhelmed all who supported a scientific treatment.

At last, toward the end of the sixteenth century, two men made a beginning of a much more serious attack upon this venerable superstition.

The revival of learning, and the impulse to thought on material matters given during the "age of discovery," undoubtedly produced an atmosphere which made the work of these men possible.