On this account they, as well as those who afforded them aid, were called by the common title of _Secourists_.

The modes of relief adopted were remarkably in accordance with those which were administered to the St.John's dancers and the Tarantati, and they were in general very rough; for the sufferers were beaten and goaded in various parts of the body with stones, hammers, swords, clubs, &c., of which treatment the defenders of this extraordinary sect relate the most astonishing examples in proof that severe pain is imperatively demanded by nature in this disorder as an effectual counter-irritant.

The Secourists used wooden clubs in the same manner as paviors use their mallets, and it is stated that some _Convulsionnaires_ have borne daily from six to eight thousand blows thus inflicted without danger.

One Secourist administered to a young woman who was suffering under spasm of the stomach the most violent blows on that part, not to mention other similar cases which occurred everywhere in great numbers.

Sometimes the patients bounded from the ground, impelled by the convulsions, like fish when out of water; and this was so frequently imitated at a later period that the women and girls, when they expected such violent contortions, not wishing to appear indecent, put on gowns make like sacks, closed at the feet.