5 flashes mysterious mental illness, covering a whole town or village, and then disappeared.

1. Medieval plague dance


In 1374, dozens of villages along the Rhine covered fatal disease - dance plague or, scientifically, choromania (or St. Vitus's dance). Hundreds of people on the streets were jumping and cut a caper under anyone (except perhaps in themselves dancing) do not hear the music. They almost nothing to eat or sleep, sometimes many days, till broken in the blood feet refused to hold them.

And then the plague ceased almost as suddenly as it had started.

Following the outbreak occurred in Strasbourg in 1518, when a woman named Mrs. Trofea suddenly went out, began to dance and could not stop for several days. During the week it was joined by another 34 people, by the end of the month, the number of the dancers increased to 400. Dozens of people fell down and died from heart attacks, strokes, or exhaustion. And in this case the disease is gone as suddenly.

Scholars of all stripes tried to find an explanation for this puzzle. Some time was considered the most likely explanation, according to which people were poisoned bread affected LPV - a fungus that grows on damp stalks of rye. If it enters the body, it causes cramping, fever, and delusional state.

History Professor John Waller from the University of Michigan with this version does not agree - in both cases they were talking about the dance, about the seizures. Another popular theory - in which the victims were part of a dance cult, too, seemed Waller unconvincing.

Professor Waller proposed his theory: it was the mass psychogenic (due to mental injury) diseases caused by fears and depression. Both outbreaks was preceded by the famine, destruction of crops, flood - what could be regarded as the signs of the imminent biblical catastrophe. The terror of the supernatural could lead people into a kind of trance.

In addition, dance plague associated with the name St. Vitus - Christian Martyr, dancing in front of the statue which, according to legend, it was possible to gain health. That is the idea of dancing for the sake of salvation was already in the minds of people. All it takes is one person who would have started this marathon.

Strasbourg flash was not the last - in 1840 something similar happened in Madagascar.

2. The epidemic of laughter in Tanganyika in 1962

This nightmare began on January 30, 1962 from a common joke. Three Schoolgirls school for girls in Tanganyika began to laugh and couldn't stop. Soon laughter swept 95 Schoolgirls. The scale of the epidemic appeared to be quite serious, and the school had to close for two months.

Laughter gave way to tears, accompanied by attacks of fear and, in some cases, outbursts of aggression. These symptoms quickly spread around the school (probably through contact with an infected), and could last from several hours to 16 days.

The school was closed in March, when the number of infected reached 95 159 all students of the school. In 10 days after closing, a new flash - in one of the neighbouring villages. Several girls ' schools were closed native of this village and, apparently, brought the disease back home. As a result, from April to may in the village victims of a mysterious epidemic began 217 people.

All victims were mentally healthy people. There was no heat, no cramps, their blood was not found anything unusual. Theories about the impact of some psychotropic fungus in the absence of other symptoms were not justified. The mystery remains unsolved to this day.

3. Dramamine or pathological tourism

Most of us from time to time likes to change the situation. But there are people who, once started, is no longer able to return to a settled way of life. The epidemic of dramamine or uncontrollable desire to change places swept France 1886-1909 years.

The man who served as a model of dramamine for European medical establishment, was a mechanic-gasman from Bordeaux by the name of Jean-albert Dada. In 1886, after he returned from his truly epic journey, he was placed in the hospital Sant Andre. The man, of course, was exhausted to the extreme, but it's not so bad - he was in a fog, could not remember where he was and what it was doing.

Doctors managed by bit to recreate its history and make medical journal called "Mad traveler." It turned out that passionate desire to travel has appeared at Dada in 1881, when he is somewhere in the South of Belgium left the French army and moved first to Prague, then to Berlin, and then through East Prussia came to Moscow. In Moscow Dada arrested (only what happened the murder of Alexander II) and deported to Turkey. In Constantinople, he was received at the French Consulate and sent to Vienna, where he again found work of the gasman.

Shortly after his story became known to the public, appeared Dada followers, in any case, we know more about several cases of dramamine in France about this time. Cases of the disease were not so much, but talking about this phenomenon in the medical community was so much that quite drawn to this epidemic. They gradually subsided to about 1909.

4. Corot or syndrome retractable genitals

Syndrome Corot is occurring in men fear that the penis starts to be drawn into the abdominal cavity. This attack came in the form of the epidemic, the first known case of which refers to 300 BC Often manifestations Caro was observed in Africa or Asia and was accompanied by the fear of imminent death. The last outbreak of Corot occurred in 1967 in Singapore, where more than a thousand men tried to prevent the involvement of their male dignity in care of things different clips and sticks.

Women also were observed something similar - they experienced the panic that their Breasts or nipples disappear. But among men of victims was much greater. Psychologists believe that such epidemics characteristic of cultures in which the value of a person is measured by his ability to reproduction. Often the epidemic followed by periods of social tension and General anxiety. In China culprits Corot is considered to be the spirits of foxes, and in Africa sure that this is the result of witchcraft.

5. Motor hysteria

In the Middle ages messages about different kind of hysterical state among inmates monasteries were really frequent. In one of the monasteries, for example, the residents began to meow and climb the trees and in General behave like a cat. Similar epidemic has evolved over the course of 300 years since the 1400s) throughout Europe. One of the last cases occurred in 1749 in Wurzburg (Germany), when, after the mass fainting and foam at the mouth among nuns, one woman accused of witchcraft and beheaded. Usually the epidemic ended after a visit to the priest and the ceremony for the exorcism.

Waller (that has explored the possible reasons dancing plague) proposed the theory that the strange epidemic diseases among the nuns were caused by a combination of stress and religious trance.

Women were often sent to monasteries by force, moreover, these were designated with a rather harsh laws, especially since the 1400s. Religious zeal for spiritual struggle were able not each and many passed the nerves. Any strange behavior was interpreted by the intervention of the dark forces:

"They assumed that can become obsessive, and unconsciously took on this role," wrote Waller.