Account of the epidemic religious monomania in Sweden in the years 1841 and 1842 / by the editor.

  • Smith, Samuel Hanbury, 1810-1894.
Date:
[1850]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Account of the epidemic religious monomania in Sweden in the years 1841 and 1842 / by the editor. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    gance those of the French convulsionists, at the tomb of a priest of the name of Paris, in the church-yard of St. Medard. Ihe excesses of these last mentioned were carried to so fear- ful an extent, and their religious ceremonies were so debased by obscenities, that the police was obliged to interfere, and forbid these detestable practices; hence it was affirmed that the following somewhat impious notice was suspended over the church door: De par Ie Roi, defense a Dieu, De (aire miracle en a lieu. The king was Louis XV. There are quite a number of anomalous forms of convulsion, bearing more or less marked resemblance to that of the mad dancers. Occasionally there have been movements uninflu- enced by music, occasionally the patients are haunted by a certain tune, irrisistibly compelling them to dance. Majendie describes a very extraordinory case, in which the body of the sufferer was thrown into every conceivable contortion, but he never lost his balance, nor fell down. In such cases there has been pain in the head, often excruciating, sometimes in Ihe back, occasionally when the patients were women in the uterine region ; and in one case where there was no pain, there was intolerance of light. Three cases, occurring in one family in the county of Rutland, are related by Dr. Armstrong, in the ninth volume of the Edinburg Medical Commentaries, in which the patients were affected periodically and suddenly, with fits of shrieking, jumping, writhing, &c. The disease first occurred after hooping-cough, and Dr. Armstrong consid- ered it epileptic. These cases were cured for the most part very quickly by means of local depletion and counter-irrita- tion ; one case which had proved obstinate under treatment, yielded at once to a spontaneous diarrhoea. We shall now proceed with the history of the Swedish epi- demic, and commence with the very first case that occurred. Cask 1. A yeoman's daughter, living at Alearp, in the parish of Hjelmseryd, province of lonkoping, Lisa Andersdotter by name, 16 years of age, of good constitution, and who had from childhood enjoyed good health, began to suffer from gas- tralgia and hemicrania, in the early part of May, 1811, and these symptoms steadily increased for six weeks. She had been bled several times, venesection being much in fashion in the neighborhood where she resided. About Midsummer ob- stinate hiccup, and clonic spasms, especially of the arms and shoulders, came on, with, at times, attacks of dyspnoea, so