A STRANGE MALADY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3369, 8 November 1911, Page 8

A STRANGE MALADY.

DANCING MALADY. The germ of unrest which has been spreading its epidemics in Germany, Britain, France and China and many other countries has delivered a remarkable attack against some portions of Asia Minor. There it has taken shape in a strange malady which is similar to the convulsive dancing mania that afflicted Europe at intervals between 1374 and 1500, and in Italy was given the name of “Tarantism” on account of its resemblance to the effects produced by the bite of the tarantula. Details of the recent outbreak are related in a letter to the “Times” by an Englishman who has been farming for some years at Yenishehr, near the Dardanelles. On visiting the quarters occupied by his harvest workers one evening he found a crowd of shrieking, gesticulating women surrounding four girls, whose legs, arms and, bodies were twitching like those of marionettes. Two of them were executing a sort of slow dance closely resembling the dance which persons bitten by the tarantula are under compulsion to perform. A third was “taking headers” on to the concrete floor, but, strange to say, when, the fit was over she appeared to have escaped even a bruise. The fourth was working her arms like a saw, and it was evident that all the girls were suffering great distress. They were taken away from their excited friends, but it was necessary to bring drugs into use in order to soothe them. The British farmer made inquiries and learned that the new form of tartaiiism is spreading rapidly in the Troad, and that it brings on heart disease in many cases. There is a belief among the natives that this'strange excitement. is due .to promptings of the spirit of.. St. . George.., an#'that. many of" the' ‘‘possessed” become' seers* and mediums for the working of miracles. The malady claims new victims on St. George’s Day, and the correspondent attended a church in Yeishehr on that day and witnessed far more extraordinary manifestations than those he had seen previously. Lest the mania should spread he suggests that it should be made the subject of careful inquiry, and the suggestion certainly seems to be timely.