# Mas Hysteria/Twitching Disease.  Update?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mas-hysteria-twitching-disease-update/425910>\
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\
**Created:** [November 10, 2007, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mas-hysteria-twitching-disease-update/425910 "2007-11-10T15:00:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\
**Post date:** [November 10, 2007, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mas-hysteria-twitching-disease-update/425910/1 "2007-11-10T15:00:53Z")

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Didn’t **Cecil** print an article on Mass Hysteria or neurological disease causing large outbreaks of unexplained twitching in schools?

I can’t find it.

Anyway, this was in the news–

[http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,308958,00.html](http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,308958,00.html)

> [@](#):
>
> VINTON, Va. — A mysterious illness causing an odd “twitching” symptom has stricken several students and a staff member at a Virginia high school.
> 
> Testing continues at William Byrd High School in Roanoke County where students and staff have shown strange symptoms of twitching and spasms since September, but a cause has yet to be determined.
> 
> About 30 students staged a walkout and protest earlier this week, and the school has said about 300 of the school’s 1,200 students have been absent.
> 
> School officials say they do not plan to close the school.
> 
> “I have seen them in the hallway, and it seems pretty bad,” said senior Charlie Wallace, told the Roanoke Times. “It’s uncontrollable. Twitching, that’s the only way you can describe it.”

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**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\
**Post date:** [November 10, 2007, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mas-hysteria-twitching-disease-update/425910/2 "2007-11-10T19:18:35Z")

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I’d lay odds that this is a case of mass hysteria, based on the symptomatology and rumor-mongering (Lead paint! Carbon dioxide from the photography room!!), especially given that environmental testing has come up negative.

Twitching and neurologic symptoms were major features of one of the first documented examples of mass hysteria back in the Middle Ages (St. Vitus’ Dance), and have been reported in modern times as well, along with headaches, nausea etc.

There is a great story by the medical writer Berton Roueche about an episode of mass hysteria occurring in an elementary school. There’s a wonderful scene where emergency personnel are all over the place, kids are fainting and feeling sick, and an investigating physician catches the eye of a hard-boiled woman teacher who tells him in no uncertain terms that the episode is a crock and that someone has to get this school running again. So he calls an impromptu news conference on the spot, announces that testing has found no toxins, it’s a case of mass hysteria and things need to start returning to normal. And that did it - the “illness” just melted away.

Fascinating, as Mr. Spock might say. Or as the Doors noted, people are strange.