On Tuesday the 20th, they danced, and the next day were all at work, except two or three, who were much weakened by their fits." The occurrence here described is remarkable on this account, that there was no important predisposing cause for convulsions in these young women, unless we consider as such their miserable and confined life in the work- rooms of a spinning manufactory.

It did not arise from enthusiasm, nor is it stated that the patients had been the subject of any other nervous disorders.

In another perfectly analogous case, those attacked were all suffering from nervous complaints, which roused a morbid sympathy in them at the sight of a person seized with convulsions.

This, together with the supervention of hysterical fits, may aptly enough be compared to tarantism.
2.

"A young woman of the lowest order, twenty-one years of age, and of a strong frame, came on the 13th of January, 1801, to visit a patient in the Charite Hospital at Berlin, where she had herself been previously under treatment for an inflammation of the chest with tetanic spasms, and immediately on entering the ward, fell down in strong convulsions.