The girl thus treated immediately went into convulsions, which lasted twenty-four hours.

Shortly afterward three other girls were seized with like convulsions, a little later six more, and then others, until, in all, twenty-four were attacked.

Then came a fact throwing a flood of light upon earlier occurrences.

This epidemic, being noised abroad, soon spread to another factory five miles distant.
The patients there suffered from strangulation, danced, tore their hair, and dashed their heads against the walls.

There was a strong belief that it was a disease introduced in cotton, but a resident physician amused the patients with electric shocks, and the disease died out.
In 1801 came a case of like import in the Charite Hospital in Berlin.
A girl fell into strong convulsions.