An Epidemic of St. Vitus's Dance in Illinois.

Auckland Star, Volume XIX, Issue 218, 15 September 1888, Page 3 (Supplement)

An Epidemic of St. Vitus's Dance in Illinois.

A startling piece of news cornea ifrppi; Duquoin, 111., to the effect?.that t^jattown' ia now visited by what threatens to become ,an epidemic of the disease popularly known ias St. Vitus'e dance. Several cases," more i orless severe, are reported, and fears are oppressed that the disease will' spread "and go beyond the control of the local physicians. Interviews with'fcwb of the leading specialists upon nervous disease In • this ■ city reveal the fact that, while St.; Vitus's dance may. not become epidemic in ! the same sense. as do germ diseases,. i,t; ifl true that a large number of persons may become affected by it at the same time, and that its may; be.communicated from one person to another. ~ , fjfcS: vwilliam 'A? ■Hammond, the ''well: known specialistj while, jspealjipg of the Occurrence in Duquoin, said': cGhoreaj or St. Vitus's dance, has often;prevai!ed^epii qemically from the Middle Ages, when it of ten the accompaniment of periods of religious fanaticism, down to to-day, when ipstancea of epidemics frequency pcjbhi;Jin schools. At Ai<-la-Cbapeile, >ri 'iT'SI; $here \jras a visitation of a form of dancing mania, which is what chorea really is, and Tv Thich was then called St. John's dance. Men and women subject to it metin the streets churches, where, they fpr^nediijiroles, and danced hand in hand until they fell to

the ground in a state of exhaustion; Strasbourg received a like visitation in 1418, wh. en the disease, received the name of St. Vitus' dance. In Italy a similar dancing disease, called tarentismj sometimes prevails epidemically. The dancing mania of the Eastern dervishes is probably of a like character, and in our own country we have had a sect called Jumpers, and we still have the Shakers, whoare in all probability likewise affected. Many of the manifestations of witchcraft were undpubtedly choreic, as are many of those of spiritualism. . :

'The so-called demonbmania, a kind a hystero - epilepsy, i has likewise shown a tendency _to , prevail epidemically. At Loudun, in France, the nuns who were subject to it accused Urbain Grandier of having bewitched them, arid he was burned at. the stake. At Marseilles Father Louis Ganfridi was also accused by the Ursuline nuns of having bewitched them; Ganfridi ultimately became insane, confessed all that was laid to his charge, and he, too, was burned at the stake.

I Where chorea now occurs epidemically it ia generally in schools and among children, and the cause of the spread of the disease is doubtless direct or unconscious imitation. In individual cases, while it is supposed that rheumatism may bo a predisposing cause of chorea, the exciting cause is apt to be one connected with emotions, say such as fright, apprehension, anxiety or mental excitement of some sort. In a number of cases it has been brought about by intense study at school. Not long" ago a,lady brought me her little girl, who was suffering from St. Vitus's dance. I told the little girl to empty the satchel she carried in her hand. She did so and displayed no less than nine book's upon nine different subjects, which she was required to study between the hours of 3 o'clock in the afternoon of one day and 9 o'clock in the morning of tlie following day. Now, place a little girl who is thus already afflicted with St. Yitus' dance ? from very easily explained causes, among her school companions, manyofwhomhaveapredisposition to the same disease, and who are very likely housed in' a~: badly-ventilated schoolroom, what is more likely than that the disease-will develop itself into an epidemic by sheer imitation ? ~ lif 1 'Chorda fas a rule is curable, and as fa preventive I should recommend the substiJ tution of some more rational system of education for the, cramming which is now in vogue in our public echools, and the placing of the children amid more healthy surroundings. All nervous diseases show a, tendency to increase. As an accompaniment of a more highly developed civilisation, cases of Sfc. Vitus's dance increase in number proportionately with other pervous diseases.' < ■ *■■■■■. ;V- •■; tix-'A ■";•■</;■■!•! ; ;»;i

I)r." Edward C.' Spitzka, specialist on insanity and nervous disorders, said : •We not only have high historical authority for the fact that St. Vitus's dancehasprevailed in the form of epidemics in the past, bit we have ample evidence that it does bq opcur nowi In the Middle Ages,-some forp of choreomania was often the accompaniment of periods of religious fanaticism, Nowadays K when an epidemic pcours, it 16 generally among children in some school. There are countless instances of such epidemics in the schools of Germany, France, Italy,' Switzerland and England. In those countries the school inspectors have more power and the records are better kept; and hence information on the subject is more easily obtaiued than here. : ; ?

*But we have instances here. I know of one which occurred in my own practice, when, fithin a space of three months, no fewer than seventeen children were afflicted with St. Vitus's dance. Th^e fundamental cause is doubtless some slight defect in the nervous system, but I have found that the exciting causip.ia more often fright, Iremeinber^ three .cases in three days which were caused by a tite-alarmi t>yp of theji} by ttie'^ame.alarm.';:1 The following would be> a fairly' characteristic history of a patient ftfniqted with St. Vitus" dance : — '-.I ' I'lrst, the patient has suffered from pome exhausting disease, fpllo^ed by convalescence. Second, the patient has then been subjected to the cramming system at some Eublic or private school ; and third, there as ibeoti! some saddpn; fright, which has brought on tlie attack. - ■■■■ :■■-,. » .1 If. the child is not isolated, but is allowed to continue at school, then an epidemic is qi^ite apt to follow frptn imitation. Spmetimes the other children will!imitate tlie one suffering^ from St. Vitus's dance from pure devilry, and will find, that they bav^ lost the power to control their own movements. "But more often the imitation is of: that^'unconapious eort which makes a whole school restless from the presence of a single restlofls individual, or which makes youjinclined to yaw^n when the man with whom you a,re tajldng yawns, On§.,^| the best instances of th' is unconsdious imitation is the|tendency a stuttering man has to cause those that converse with him to stutter likewise, for stuttering is really a disenss akin to. chorea, :; '■ .' '^There are cases of chorea^which are incurable, but I have not met with any* such in my pracfcico. When the disease has shovvn itself epidemically in schools, the schools should be closed and the patients isolated, as is done in such casei abroad. To pi-evehi an epidemic the only recourse is to remove and isolate a child as =oon as it shows ;the aligl|te# tendency tp|he disease., I d^n^t.tlnriK that the evidence shows that of nervous diseases, either chorea, epilepsy orordinery paralysis from brain hemorrhage, are on the increase, but there is an increase in the number of cases of nervous prostration and'of paretic dementia, or softening of the brain.',, r';,: .' ' t .»' . •.-