Within the back pages of story books and the footnotes of aesculapian reports , there ’s a fistful of cold-blooded case that would make even the most serious scientists go " what the … “From freak illnesses to mass moments of madness , here are a bunch of stories that keep some researcher laying awake at night .
St. Vitus ' Dancing Plague
Toward the end of the Middle Ages in Europe , there was a eminent number of theme of “ dancing mania ” . Seemingly out of nowhere , huge groups of people were consumed with an urge to dance , violently jig around until they collapsed from exhaustion .
One of the biggest “ dance plagues ” ever documented occurred on June 24 , 1374 , in Aachen , modern - day Germany . One account from 1888recalls this issue : “ They form circles hand in hand , and appearing to have mislay all control over their senses … for hours together , in wild delirium , until at duration they fell to the background in a state of enfeeblement . ”
Anotheroutbreak in 1518 in Strasbourg saw over 400 people saltation for week on end until dozens pass away of enervation .
Since this happened centuries ago , it ’s ill-defined if this was a genuine condition or a social phenomenon . After all , confused historians in the time to come may try to understand “ the Harlem Shake ” or “ planking ” in a few 100 . However , modernistic researchershave suggestedthe " dance manic disorder " may have been do by a few thing : ergot poisoning from rot rye , epilepsy , typhus , or even a sort - of share mania have by the stress of be in the grim Dark Ages .
The Teenager Who Died Of HIV / AIDs In “ The Pre - Aids Era ”
The write up of Robert Rayford remains a unknown medical mystery to date . In 1969 , this 16 - class - old from St Louis died of an nameless illness . Around 19 years subsequently , a follow-up of his save bloodfound the presence of " a computer virus closely related or identical to " HIV , mean that he died of HIV / AIDS complication despite most expert conceive that it first appeared in the US during the mid-1970s .
So how did someone so young from the US contract the contagion so early ? No one is sure . At the time , doc mark he was also infected with the sexually transmitted disease chlamydia . Rayfordtold doctorsthat he was sexually fighting , although he denied being homosexual or bisexual . aesculapian records also show no sign that he had received a blood transfusion .
One conclusionleft to draw was that he was used as a child - prostitute . That , however , remains high-risk .
The 1983 West Bank Fainting Epidemic
closely 1,000 citizenry , almost all of them teenage Palestinian girlfriend near the West Bank , were hospitalized between March and April 1983 for fainting . Multiple female Israeli soldier in the sphere also suffered frm fainting , blurred visual sensation , and nausea .
The New York Timesreported that “ Palestinian loss leader have accuse Israeli settlers and official of using ' chemical war ' in West Bank schools to drive Arabs out of the sphere or to sterilize Arab missy . ”
However , medical experts now generally believe that this was most likely an instance of mass fury . A reportby the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ) argues that small isolated illustration of hydrogen sulphide poisoning might have set off a psychogenic illness among the young women , many of whom had been experience with mellow levels ofanxiety and stress due to the troubles in the West Bank field .
Sean Paul And Sudoku Puzzles Causing Seizures
In this cause , a 25 - year - old human being stomach from seizure but only when trying to work out Sudoku puzzler . Doctors at the University of Munich recentlycarried out a studyon the man to assay to calculate out what is going on . They found that he does n’t have the seizures when he reads , when doing math calculation , or when he spell numbers down , but he does have seizures when carry out other visuospatial project call for routine .
If that was n’t specific enough , there ’s also a woman who has aseizureevery sentence she hears Sean Paul ’s song " Temperature " . After noticing this pattern , she realized it also happens with other R&B chart songs like Sean Kingston ’s " Beautiful Girl " and Rihanna ’s " Umbrella ” . The 2000s must have been tough .
“ The Toxic Lady ”
In February 1994 , Gloria Ramirez was rush along to a Californian hospital , suffering from the effect of advance cervical genus Cancer . Within a matter of hours , 23 of the 37 emergency room staff who had come into tangency with her lead off to pass out and abide brawn spasm , with many have to be hospitalized .
To this day , no one is quite certain what happened in"The Toxic Lady”case . People ab initio suspected it could be a case of mass hysteria ; however , expert have of late developed a slightly more scientific interpretation of events .
A squad of scientists , writing in the journalForensic Science Internationalin 1997 , explain that it could have been a mountain chain of unlikely chemical substance reactions . Independent researchers suggested she had been using dimethyl sulfoxide as a topical homemade pain remediation . atomic number 8 administered by the doctor could have combined with the dimethyl sulfoxide to form dimethyl sulfone . electric shocks from her defibrillation could have then exchange the dimethyl sulfone into dimethyl sulfate , a brawny venomous accelerator . While it sounds highly improbable , it ’s the good account we ’ve got so far .
Tarrare ’s Appetite for Food
Tarrare was a 17th - C man with an deadly bizarre “ gift ” of have an unsatisfiable appetence for food .
So the story hold up , he work as a street performer , traveling across France with a rattling band of cocotte , thieves , and pariah . He earned money as a street performing artist whose human action was to eat anything put in front of him – literally anything – from pit and ember to live animate being and a preposterous quantity of food . One account says he once ate a meal for 15 people along with multiple animals . Despite this , he was also slenderly build ( although he did suffer from exudative looseness his whole lifespan ) .
The story of Tarrare was before the advent of photography or modern software documentation , but thankfully we know a bit about it from a set ofearly aesculapian papersfrom the eighteenth century . It ’s suggested that perhaps he was just a mountebank and conman . However , due to the lack of information , researchers can not tell where the myth begin and realness cease , allow alone work out out a right diagnosis .
The twentieth Century sleep Sickness Epidemic
Between 1915 and 1926 , 5 million people became infected with a disease that left them motionless and stuck like a zombified statue . A huge act of these people pop off shortly after and many never convalesce to their normal state . away from odd set apart cases , the world has not get wind any significant cases of the illness since .
scientist now call thisEncephalitis lethargica , a form of mentality inflammation . Modern researchershave tried to unravel the condition once again in recent times , but the only connection they found between the victims was the mien of streptococcus , a bacteria most often associated with balmy sore throats . Their best guess is that this bacteria undergo an strange mutation that provoked the immune organization to go into hyperdrive and inadvertently lash out the brain .
