Mass Hysteria | Psychogenic Illness

Mass hysteria is a term that is used so frequently and too imprecisely to apply to anything from giving in to fashion fads to engaging in protests and raves that it has become a vague word, associated with something with a negative connotation that requires the involvement of a broad number of citizens.

Many afflicted may also have been reluctant to avoid partying until they became so tired out and drained that they expired. Such incidents are commonly regarded as two of the earliest recorded examples of what will come to be referred to as mass hysteria.

Mass Hysteria, often referred to as mass sociogenic illness, mass psychogenic condition, infectious hysteria, or mass psychogenic illness (MPI), is the sudden propagation of disease signs and symptoms concerning participants of a cohesive community, arising from nervous system disruptions including excitation, impairment, or alteration of activity, where bodily problems that are spontaneously displayed do not have a connection.

Mass hysteria is often characterized as a "conversion condition" in which an individual has neurological effects that influence the nervous system in the absence of a clinical trigger of disease that can occur in response to psychological distress.

Since mass hysteria, or group obsessional activity, can assume so many different forms, it is very difficult to describe it explicitly or to identify it with confidence.

In Medical terms

Periodically during documented history, peculiar incidents of psychological and neurological manifestations have occurred en masse: thrashing and crying outbursts, or maddening spasms, and sudden vocal tics involving a number of people at once, sometimes due to factors such as abduction, madness, and mailing.

Such incidents of so-called mass hysteria tend to perplex the scientific world, however, that knowledge has strengthened awareness and response to such potentially infectious psychogenic cases. 

Public panic events through a broad variety of medical fields are of concern to ambulance doctors, epidemiologists, clinicians, psychologists, and others researching physical, economic, and occupational safety.

In Sociology terms

Through sociology and psychology, mass hysteria is a phenomenon that conveys mutual delusions of danger, whether actual or imagined, to the community and culture as a consequence of speculation and terror. A specific form of mass hysteria happens where a number of individuals assume that they have a particular disease or disorder, often referred to as mass psychogenic disease or viral hysteria.

What Research says

In addition to the difficulties common to all work affecting the social sciences, including the lack of resources for regulated trials, the mass sociogenic disease poses unique difficulties for researchers in this area. Balaratnasingam and Janca say that the techniques used to treat mass hysteria remain controversial.

According to Jones, the consequences of MPI "can be difficult to discern from bioterrorism, the accelerated transmission of contamination, or immediate toxic toxicity."

Such issues are the consequence of the unresolved treatment of MPI. Singer, from the Uniformed Schools of Medicine, places the issues of such a diagnosis because, "you see a community of people feeling sick, your research, you calculate all you can test, and when you really can't see some real cause, you claim, 'okay, there's nothing else here, because let's label it a case of MPI." 

There is a loss of reasoning in the statement that proceeds: "There is zero because it must be the MPI." This precludes the possibility that an endogenous element may have been ignored. Nonetheless, conducting a huge number of experiments raises the risk of false positives.

Are women most affected?

Evidence appears to suggest one thing: that the bulk of incidents of widespread hysteria are encountered by groups of people.

Some scholars suggest that women might be more vulnerable, the signs of the disorder may be a non-confrontational way out of an unpleasant circumstance. Bartholomew points out, for example, that in a traumatic or even violent job setting, widespread panic and associated signs may be a method of throwing up the opposition and finding a way out.

Middle Ages

According to an unidentified scientific textbook of 1844, a nun who stayed in a French monastery during an uncertain time in the Middle Ages inexplicably started to meow like a pet, eventually causing the other nuns in the monastery to meow.

Finally, all the nuns in the convent will meow together for a certain amount of time every day, making the entire people stunned.

It didn't end until the officers tried to beat the nuns. According to an account published by the author in 1784, a nun staying in a German convent in the 1400s started to bite her guests, the practice quickly spread to other convents in Germany, Holland, and Italy.

Some Cases

➣ The first known case was described on an Egyptian papyrus dated back to 1990 BC, which mentioned irregular uterine motions that culminated in severe mental and physical symptoms. A related syndrome has been identified by Hippocrates and colleagues and has also been linked to irregular uterine movements. This hypothesis, while anatomically flawed and undoubtedly dismissive to modern hearing, did realize that hysteria was more prevalent in women. 

➣ In the Christian age, the uterus was substituted by supernatural possession as an etiology for hysteric symptoms. And at the end of the 1800s, French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot indicated that insanity represented a disorder of the cerebral cortex. Joseph Babinski, one of Charcot 's teachers, disagreed with his instructor and claimed that insanity was a psychological rather than a psychiatric condition, susceptible to suggestion and treated by persuasion.

➣ The dancing epidemic of 1518 was the case of the dancing mania which occurred in Strasbourg, Alsace (then part of the Holy Roman Empire) in July 1518. Numerous individuals have taken days to dance.

➣ The Halifax Slasher was the label assigned to a suspected perpetrator of people, mainly women, from the town of Halifax, England, in November 1938.

The week-long panic started after two people reported to have been assaulted by a strange man carrying a mallet and "warm buckles" on his feet. More accounts of assaults accompanied by a guy holding a knife or a razor. The condition was so severe that Scotland Yard was called in to support the Halifax police. One of the suspected perpetrators revealed on 29 November that he had done the harm on himself for his publicity. Many also had identical revelations, and the Yard inquiry found that neither of the threats was genuine. Subsequently, five local residents were charged with criminal nuisance, and four were taken to jail.

➣ Sufferers in culture-bound disease Koro claims that their organs vanish into their skin, sometimes as a consequence of unwanted sexual intercourse. This sign, which is extremely distressing in itself, creates more fear as it is assumed that the absence of the organ may end in death. An epidemic of Koro in Singapore in 1967 culminated in hundreds of Chinese people receiving aid from doctors, some of whom went so far as to attach bits of string to their penises in the hope of stopping the precious appendage from receding through their belly.

➣ Mass panic events nearly invariably contain only females or a combination of females and males, typically of a female predominance. Male-only instances are very uncommon. Nevertheless, one such incident has been recorded in the San Diego Military Barracks. This was perhaps one of the greatest incidents of mass hysteria ever recorded, with nearly 1,000 military recruits complaining of cough or other symptoms and 375 evacuating the ambulance. Others also offered CPR for alleged cardiac failure or respiratory collapse. Many who experienced CPR attempts were at the greatest risk of experiencing symptoms themselves. Almost all of them healed spontaneously within 24 hours and no environmental toxicity was found.

Latest Case

Mass hysteria happened during the pandemic of COVID-19. For starters, violence broke out in Ukraine because of the fear of the virus from evacuees in quarantine from China. The Ukrainian authorities have blamed the attacks on a misinformation operation threatening the government and circulating through social media.

In Iran, 100 people died attempting to 'flush their bodies' of coronavirus with ineffective substances such as high-grade ethanol.

Conclusions

Cases involving the dissemination of apparently unfounded anxieties can appear at odds with an increasingly informed general population, but outbreaks of widespread hysteria tend to occur, and conversion disorder remains a prevalent occurrence in neurology clinics.

Modern contact mechanisms, such as tv, email, social networking platforms, and YouTube, offer nearly immediate avenues for signs to be observed by others, encouraging obvious "contagion."

News and social networking outlets also offer a ready forum for political groups, such as anti-vaccination advocates and those who want to publicize their opinions. 

Dramatic television stories are apt to escalate incidents of mass panic which may take topics away from adequate care and treatment. Charcot 's victims may not have exposure to the resources of the Internet, but some of today's scholars are speculating that his theater presentations of insanity have caused the creation of many more instances.

Public panic tends to be a mental disorder that imitates a medical problem. Diagnosis includes a detailed history of incidents, a comprehensive physical and cognitive evaluation of those involved, and analysis of potential chemical contaminants or other factors.

This falls within the distinction of neurology and psychology which needs trained doctors to consult with patients and family about the essence of the condition and to seek suitable care.

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