December 4, 2021 • 42 mins
Throughout the history of the world, there have been many cases of what is known as collective hysteria - groups of people, usually young women, who all exhibit the same physical symptoms of non-existent conditions. Is it psychosomatic? Is it group think? Find out in this classic episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
M Hey everyone, it's Josh and I've chosen for this
week's s Y s K Select our two thousand fourteen
episode on the inappropriately named collective Hysteria. It turns out
that people can have a real effect on how other
people feel and behave. So take this as a sign
to be nice and maybe even soothing to others. And
(00:21):
while you're working on that, enjoy the super cool episode
on some super weird psychology. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know,
(00:54):
a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as
Charles w Chuck Bryant, and Jerry's over there to the left,
and that makes the Stuff you Should Know got the
a team. Yeah, in the hissy, I call face what Oh,
(01:18):
I'm face of course your face look at you. I
would be a combination of Murdoch and Mr Tamnik. Yeah.
Oh your hair is kind of spiky in the middle today. Yeah, Jerry,
I don't know what she'd be. I guess she'd be
the leader. She'd be Hannibal. Oh, yeah, you know she's
smoking a cigar right now and wearing a black glove.
When did you start smoking cigars? Jerry, that's weird. Very timely,
(01:43):
I said, a team. I don't want to slag off
guest produce a knoll. He's not exactly be team. No,
we'll just call ourselves the O G S. Okay, now
that we have that established, we are the O G S.
We need bowling shirts that say as much on the
bad are you're feeling good? I'm feeling uh nauseous and dizzy?
(02:04):
Oh well, Chuck, did you happen to see somebody else
who is nauseous and dizzy? Well, Jerry was last week,
and then a few more people in the office, So
I just figured we all had the same thing. All right,
I'm gonna diagnose this, okay. It's called collective hysteria, also known,
I think more appropriately is mass psychogenic disorder. I think
(02:25):
when you add the word hysteria to this, it ticks
on certain dimensions that a lot of people could find
very objectionable, you know, hysterics, hysteria. It's like um dogs
and cats living together. Yeah, but I think it has
it has a definite um gender specific connotation to it
(02:46):
from over the years, like women were supposedly very hysterical.
So the the idea of diagnosing somebody as hysterical under
any circumstances. It's kind of it's had him out to
panning the patting him on the head. Yeah, here, nice lady,
you're you're just a little hysterical. Do you just go
calm down and bake something? Right? Yeah? Stop being crazy?
(03:06):
Uh no. Mass psychogenic disorder instead is just kind of like, whoa,
your brain just did something pretty neat, And that is
the case for mass psychogenic disorder if you ask me. Um.
In this article Chuck written by Jacob Silverman, Jeopardy champion,
Yeah well yeah, yeah, you won on Jeopardy. That makes
him a champion? Yeah, I think so. He wasn't like
(03:27):
the ultimate Champion, but he won a couple of episodes, right,
which is why they should have a word for. I
guess like the champion is like the one who won
at all Ken Jennings, Yeah, or um Watson, who's that
the IBM computer? Yeah, so Jeopardy winner. Jacob Silverman wrote
this article years back, and he did a pretty great
(03:49):
job of citing a contemporary outbreak of mass psychogenic disorder
that had been going on around that time down in Mexico,
down Mexico way in Chalco, Mexico at a boarding school.
There apparently was a girls boarding school and the girls
that went to school, they were just twelve to seventeen,
(04:11):
and all of a sudden, they started, well, there was
an outbreak, a weird outbreak. There was vomiting, I believe,
trouble walking. Um, there was fever, that's weird, nausea, and
so the the people running this boarding school like, um,
what's going on? This is not good? Yeah uh, and
(04:32):
they had no idea. The girls went on Christmas break
for ten days, came back, and the thing just took
off again like wildfire. Yeah, six hundred girls, um showed
these symptoms and nobody could figure it out. Um. They
did a lot of tests, they brought in people to
like check out the facilities, and because as you'll see,
there's a trend there. Um, you know here in the West,
(04:56):
they start to blame it, usually on um, like environmental
poisoning of some kind. Right, Um, you know there's some
sort of toxin present that is poisoned everybody. They didn't
find anything there, and eventually, um, they said, this is uh,
what do you call it? Psychosomatic? Mass psychogenic disorder? Okay,
(05:16):
mass psychogenic disorder, but No, that is one of the
one of the names of mass psychogenic disorder collective hysteria,
mass hysteria, or mass psychosomatic reaction. They're all saying the
same thing they are, which is you're not well, but
so you're not really sick. But that is not exactly true,
because that's one thing that differentiates this from something that's
(05:37):
just in your head, as you actually do manifest physical symptoms. Right. Yeah,
there's this article written by a m d Named Timothy F.
Jones from the Tennessee Department of Health way back in
the heady days of two thousand, your two thousand the future, um,
and he writes that you, if you are experiencing mass
psychogenic disorder, it is not just in your head. That
(06:00):
the symptoms that you have are actually very real. Even
though there's no toxic cause they couldn't find some sort
of environmental poison or anything like that, the symptoms are
extremely real. Yeah, it's just psycho somatic. It's just basically
the brain has been tricked into causing this response. Yeah,
and this has happened. Um. They've documented about eighty cases
(06:23):
throughout history, and apparently the National Institutes of Health gets
about two cases per week reported. But um, which is
I mean, like that's that's way more yeah, common than
than you would think. You know, yeah, I would think
there'd be more than eight, because I mean, these have happened.
If you go back and look at I mean, there's
all sorts of crazy list on the internet about these
cases that date back to like the fourteenth century medieval
(06:47):
dancing mania was one of them. Yeah, the dancing plague, Yeah, yeah,
that's in there. The Salem witchcraft trials or the Salem witchcraft.
I guess what led to the trials was UM supposedly
attributed to this kind of thing. Uh. One weird thing
about this condition is more times than not it is
(07:10):
affects females, Yeah, and young females even more specifically teenagers
or even younger, which is as far as it goes
right now, inexplicable UM. And it's kind of a prickly issue,
you know, Like again you kind of come back to
the idea of calling it hysteria. You know the fact
that it does tend to afflict women or girls more
(07:33):
than them boys. UM is apparently one means of diagnosing
psychogenic disordered mass psychogenically that's like one of the first
things we'll say is like all this the sickness is
happening in this place, the school wherever, and the doctor
will say is it a bunch of girls? And then
that will clue them in that hey, this might be
what we're dealing with here and the but the problem
(07:54):
is no one has any idea why. And there have
been explanations of things like, um, uh, I guess girls
this is this is girls culturally acceptable outlet for raging
against the patriarchy. Sure, even if they don't necessarily feel
that that's what they're doing, this is there there? Uh,
(08:17):
this is the symptoms of that. That's one. Yeah, I
thought this was a pretty interesting part. What article was
that from Slate? Uh? There was h Yeah, one called
mass Asteria and Upstate New York by Ruth Graham was
on Slate. That was a good one. It was a
really good one. And we'll get to that case in
a sect. But um, I thought it was pretty interesting.
In one part it says, um, and this is a
quote from someone writing about something and said inform, if
(08:39):
not unconscious intent, it is to protest the sexual repressiveness,
rigid double standard of female team culture. Um. But they
were writing about Beatlemania, Yeah, which is interesting because it's
sort of has a similar vibe of uh, young ladies
being repressed, um, not having an outlet, and so they
(09:00):
see the Beatles and they go berserk and faint and
cry and scream collectively. Whereas boys they're more prone to
just act out if they're not feeling good. Girls are
trained to keep things inward. And they also point out
that ladies and young ladies are more prone to seek
a doctor's help for something. Um. They say that may
account for the bias right there, like guys just won't
(09:22):
go to the doctor exactly. You have to be careful though,
and in just diagnosing mass psychogenic disorder, you physicians out
there who are listening the encounter a case like this, um,
it just by basing it on the fact that it
is affecting more girls than boys. Because there's at least
one case in Great Britain where I think girls were
(09:43):
afflicted by more than half. More than double the number
of girls were afflicted by this, and it turned out
that they were retaining cucumbers being served in in the
lunch room. Yeah, and everyone knows boys hate cucumbers, and
so I mean this is they didn't need anyone, right,
But this is one of the issues with dealing with
UM mass psychogenic disorder, and that it looks and acts
(10:05):
a lot like some sort of weird epidemic. That basically
it looks like either a UM something like bioterrorism. Yeah, uh,
a rapidly spreading affection infection or affection of telemania and
then acute toxic exposure. That's what it looks like. It's
like one person gets sick, this is your index case,
(10:28):
and all of a sudden, everyone around them suddenly has
the same symptoms. Yeah. And it's like you said, it's
super dangerous to just dismiss that as oh it's all
in your head, silly little ladies. Uh, you can't do
that because what if it is something for real? But
it's also a double edged sword, is that doctor pointed out, Um,
(10:48):
you start ordering batteries of tests and it it It
can go both ways. It can Um. What the old
saying is, if you order enough tests, you're gonna find
something so it can fuel that fire. But you all
so can't not run any tests and just dismiss it. Uh.
So it's a very fine line that physicians walk when
dealing with stuff like this. For sure. Indeed, apparently UM
(11:10):
study of mass psychogenic disorder has found that it's more
prevalent in isolated communities and in situations where um, they
are highly rigid, formalized structured rules, like a Catholic school
of Mexico exactly UM. Or again um Salem, Massachusetts in
(11:31):
the seventeenth century, you know. Um. And apparently between nineteen
seventy three and half of all the outbreaks of psychogenetic
or psychogenic illness took place in schools, so that that's
possibly in part by due to kids being susceptible to
(11:54):
it more um, but also because of that that rigid
formalized structure. Yeah. And there's also usually a top down effect,
like it'll start with a teacher or an older student,
and then the younger students follow suit, which if you're
talking influence, would make sense for sure. There was one
very famous case UM. Apparently there's not very many actual
(12:17):
academic studies on this, but there's one that came out
of the New England Journal of Medicine UM that that
described a case in Tennessee where a teacher noticed, um,
some weird gas odor, A gassy odor, uh, like the
chemical kind, Yeah, not like the guy on the front
(12:40):
road too, did right exactly um, and she apparently started
suffering symptoms. Uh, and all of a sudden, like a
hundred and eighties students and teachers had to go to
the emergency room. The school was shut down for two weeks.
That did all this environmental testing, couldn't find anything, and
finally traced it back to UM psychogenic a mass psychogenic disorder,
(13:05):
if that's what didn't and then everyone In most of
these cases we should point out everyone. It starts feeling better, yes,
like in Mexico, and then at school in Tennessee. It's
it's not like they went on to die or anything. Yeah.
So in the school in Mexico, the these girls were
at a boarding school. They were only allowed to see
their parents, I think like three times a year. Yeah,
(13:27):
they couldn't even call. It's like it sounds more like
a prison. They were allowed letters when they went home.
Immediately their symptoms cleared up. The problem is that doesn't
automatically say oh, well, it's obviously mass psychogenic disorder. It
could be an environmental toxin that they were being exposed
to still at the school and we're removed from. But
(13:48):
I think the the definite prognosis is mass psychogenic disorder
in this case. That's right. So the no Seebo effect
(14:17):
we talked about that and what the placebo effect, Well,
that makes sense. Yeah, I was trying to be more clever.
I thought we were more clever than that. Uh, no cebo,
I think we said in that other podcast it was
Latin for eyeshall harm. And that's basically whereas you take
a placebo thinking it's going to help you out, and
it does help you out because the mind is powerful.
(14:40):
The no Seebo effect is thinking something bad will result,
like my teachers getting sick. I think I feel a
little sick too, and then oh, hey, my neighbor is
feeling a little sick. I think I'm feeling a little
sick too. Or this this drug trial that I'm on,
I was told that I could possibly get some sort
of gastro intestinal distress. Yeah, and even though I've been
(15:01):
given a sugar pill, I'm now going yeah because in
my mind because of the no cebo effect. Uh. There
was a famous experiment or case from six where there
was a woman who had a rose allergy and they
showed her an artificial rose and she began to I
guess it was convincing and she began to have her
(15:22):
allergic reaction and they said, ah, ha, it's fake and
you're faking, and uh she said, oh, well, I think
I'm feeling better now, and supposedly that cured her of
her real allergy to real roses. I couldn't find a
lot to back that up. But is it it is
a story? Yeah, well no, that's a I mean it
(15:44):
was in I can't remember the journal, but it was
really Yeah, it was a real deal thing. And um,
I don't I didn't get to the bottom of why
they presented this woman with a fake rose or whatever,
but they definitely didn't. This definitely happened. And um, the
the even the author of the study was saying, like
(16:05):
this woman, she wasn't faking. It was like she she
had real symptoms hives or hives exactly. I can see those. Um.
I think they call it like a rose cold or
something like that. You can get you know, stuffy, your
eyes are watering, your your nose is running, that kind
of thing. And what's interesting is some researchers have studied
(16:27):
the no cebo effect and they basically have isolated this
this chemical that gets released when the no cebo effects
going on. And again we should say it's not just
um making your nose runny or releasing histamines or anything
like that is pain too, Like you can you can
experience pain even though nothing's there to give you pain,
(16:50):
just because of the no cebo effect. What they found
was a um, A, I guess, uh, hormone, I believe
Are you ready? I'm going to try this one. Uh,
Cola cisto kinon. That sounds great, thanks man. I haven't
looked at the word, but it sounds right. Coli cisto kinon. Um.
(17:11):
Do you see it now? Yeah, that's totally right. I
totally did. So. It's a hormone, right, and it gets
released and it actually, um, it helps you experience pain.
So it's a nasty little hormone. But they found in
testing with the no cebo effect that if you block this,
you can also block the no sebo effect. So that
proves two things. Does that block pain though, like your
(17:33):
pain receptors. So does that mean if you slam your
hand in the door you won't feel it if you
can block this? Yes? So um, if you can block
Coli cisto knon, yes, it will keep you from um
hypersensitivity to pain, I believe. And this guy named Fabrizio
Benedetti I think was also in the Strokes Back. Yeah.
(17:57):
He uh. He was testing out the no eebo effect
and found that if he told people that he was
giving them an injection, which is it's a pretty cruel
test but effective. These post stop people who had just
come out of surgery. Uh, We're given an injection and
told this injection is going to increase your pain in
(18:17):
thirty minutes. I'm sorry, we have to give it to
it's part of the procedure. He gave some people an
injection of saline and they reported an increase in pain
and they all went behind the two way mirror and laughed,
right yeah, they're like yeah. And then they gave somebody,
like the other group, the control group, a chemical an
(18:39):
injection that blocks that pain. But they were told that
it was going to increase their pain. But they were
given a chemical that blocks coal is sister kinon, and
the cbo effect didn't take place. They didn't report an
increase in pain even though they were told they would. Yes,
so they So this guy is saying, like the no
cebo effect is like when when they say, it's not
(19:02):
just in your head. You're experiencing the same thing as
if you were experiencing somebody stabbing you. Well, what it
is really? You know, that's when you have to start
asking yourself those deep philosophical questions. Interesting. Um, there's another
case that's Have you ever seen the movie Safe, the
(19:22):
Todd Haynes movie with Julianne Moore. No, it's from like
the mid nineties, and she played a lady that um
started to have environmental sickness, um, just in the air,
and she's got sort of like increasingly um crazy as
the movie went on, as far as scrubbing things and
locking herself in her house and making her house a
(19:43):
clean environment. It was good and um there's there's a
true story though of a lady in London, UM named
Debbie Bird. She's a health spot manager that says that
she's allergic to E m F electro magnetic fields. And
it's an actual thing now you know, there's more than
her claiming. It's called e S electro magnetic sensitivity. Where
(20:07):
she has basically transformed her house. She painted it black.
She said she's allergic to computers, cell phones, microwaves. She
had her house rewired UH to make it basically e
M F free. Uh. She and her husband sleep under
a silver plated mosquito net to keep out radio waves
and covered all her windows with protective films, and she
(20:30):
said she feel a lot better now. So I saw that, Yes,
electromagnetic sensitivity, that if you expose somebody to a an
electromagnetic field and then just tell them that you are
and don't they have the same reaction, which would suggest
that it's it's no cibo. Well, it's super fascinating because
(20:50):
you cee cases like this from that to like gluten
sensitivity becoming a big thing now and people some people
contend that, well, it's maybe collective hysteria going on, and
if you think you're going to be sensitive to gluten,
then you're gonna be sensitive to things that contain gluten.
And I'm not saying that people because that's a very
hot topic. Sure it is, but um, some people have
(21:12):
claimed that, well, we'll talk a little bit more about
things that exacerbate the mass psychogenic disorder and the no
cebo effect right after this, so chuck. Back in two
(21:37):
thousand seven, in New Zealand, UH, a drug called el
trokes in it was a pretty widespread drug in New Zealand.
It's a hormone replacement drug, and it was the only
one that the government would pay for, so most people
who were on this hormone replacement therapy, we're using l
trokes in. And it had been that way for like decades.
(21:57):
It was just an established trug Glaxos Smith client hormone
replacement Glaxo Smith Klin. I think just those there's no
welcome involved. Um changed just the like the outer the
inner qualities of it, like the shape of the pill,
the color um and I think that's about it. But
(22:18):
the the active ingredient was exactly the same in two
thousand seven, uh And when they released it, all of
a sudden, some reports of bad side effects were starting
to trickle in, and the government was like, wait, what's
going on here. It got a little bit of media
attention and more reports started trickling in, and then the
(22:41):
media attention grew, and the reports grew and grew, and
apparently the reporting of adverse effects of altrusin increased two
thousandfold in a year and a half because of the
look of the bill. Because of the look of the pill,
they went back and studied this, and they found that
in areas where there was more reporting about these adverse
(23:03):
effects being reported for all trucs, and the more adverse
effects were being reported in that area. And that kind
of reveals one of the um risk factors for mass
psychogenic disorder is the media. It's actually spread through the
media most easily. Yeah, they have a point, though, I mean, um,
I know in this article too, it points out that
(23:25):
pills that are blue and green are usually associated with drowsiness.
Pills that are orange or yellow are not. And I
don't know if that's why they market it that way
or if it's the opposite, as we just see it
that way because of products like niquil and day quill.
But the one that makes you sleepy is green and blue,
and the one that keeps you awake or keep you
(23:45):
awake but doesn't make you drowsy orange. I thought about it.
I think, I mean, what do you associate with like
daytime sunrise? Yellow? Orange makes sense? What do you associate
with nighttime like something tranquil like blue? Yeah, Scotch gotch
Hamber Uh, yeah, I mean you think of that's what
I I think it came from. I think the pills
(24:07):
came after the association rather than the other way around. Yeah.
I think I even like when I get a prescription
for something, when I see the pill, I make a
judgment on it before I've even had it, just by saying, well,
don't look at that thing that Yeah, that's a horse pill,
or that's a capsule with you know, powdery stuff inside
(24:27):
that's different than the chalky one. It's you. I think
you just make an association. I don't think I have
any preconceived notions on what a larger pill will do
to me or a capsule will do to me other
than a tablet. But I think it's interesting, though, how
you make these judgment calls, but without even thinking about Yeah,
totally you know. I mean like you're you're you probably
(24:48):
don't sit there and look at a pill in your hand.
You just take it and just make some sort of, um,
almost unconscious judgments about it. Yeah, it may remind you
another pill that helps you that you're not even remembering exactly,
So that would be placebo. Yeah that's great. No cebo
effect not great. Poses no, and it poses a lot
of problems. For instance, there was a study I think
(25:12):
in the nineties that found that Women who believed that
they were prone to heart disease were four times likelier
to die of heart disease than women who didn't believe
they are prone to it, even though they had all
the exact same risk factors, basically the same risk risk factors.
There was nothing differentiating these women aside from a belief
that they were going to die from heart disease or
(25:34):
a belief that they weren't, and that led to a
four time four fold increase in deaths from that. Just
basically from a belief, is what it suggests. Yeah, we well,
it's sort of like the I know it's kind of cheesy,
but the p M A the positive mental attitude. I
think we've all know someone who walks around so and
(25:55):
so sick. Oh I know I'm going to get it.
I just know I'm going to get sick, or you know,
I just know I'm gonna get cancer because it runs
in my family. That I think that has an effect
on things. I have to agree. I know some of
our more skeptical listeners will are pulling their hair out
right now, but I totally agree with you. When we
did our show in Toronto on the way back, you
me and I flow out of Buffalo, and I was
(26:17):
feeling a little down, but like at the point where
I feel like you can talk yourself into staying healthy,
positive mental attitude. I guess that's what you call it.
But we were leaving right at about dusk, and the
sun was just beaming through the windows and illuminating every
single microbe visible microbe in the air. I could see
(26:40):
them like just going into my nose in my mouth,
and I'm like, I couldn't stop, Like I couldn't. I
was like, I'm not gonna get sick. I'm not gonna
get sick. And man, did I ever get sick. But
I noticed that right when we took off, and no,
you know what it was. Somebody shut one of their
um their window covers. Oh the shade, shade exactly is
(27:02):
the word that I was looking for. Somebody shut their
shade and I couldn't see it anymore, and I immediately
started to feel less symptomatic. Immediately, it was like turning
off a light. And I still got sick, but I
was just drowning. And basically what my brain was interpreting
is like being assaulted by foreign invaders, which I am
all the time, but I normally can't see them. Yeah,
(27:24):
well I've done I do that all the time when
I opened my uh the curtains in the bedroom and
I'll see you in the morning. I'll see that stuff
in the air and I just think, oh, man, that's
what I'm walking around breathing in everything. Dog hair and
cat hair and Emily hair. So your lungs are just
chocked full of it. So one of the one of
(27:44):
the problems this poses chuck for physicians is that we
expect doctors, or we want doctors to be transparent, to
not lie to us. Yeah, we've talked a lot about
this lately. I feel like, yeah, we've talked a lot
about diseases. Some of our um I pochondriac listeners have
been like police talking about diseases because now I've got Morgellons,
(28:07):
I'm gonna have like some sort of toxic exposure. Um
and then very soon leprosy spoiler. So uh, the problem
is is if you tell somebody that's going into surgery, hey,
by the way, um, you know you you might have
(28:28):
trouble walking, you might feel nauseous for the next six months.
You like, all this stuff that could be associated with
which we demand from our doctors. It's been shown that
if you are fearful or in despair going into surgery,
that's associated with longer healing times and a higher risk
of post operative infection. Right, So, if you have the
(28:49):
no cebo effect where doctors are saying, okay, if I
tell somebody, And it's been proven time after time that
in drug trials, people who are still are given placebo
will drop out of drug trials because they're experiencing these
negative side effects even though they're given the sugar pill. So,
if you're a doctor and you you know that you
(29:12):
are telling somebody something that ultimately may end up harming them,
and you've sworn an oath to do no harm, you've
got a conundrum going on right now. And that's what
the no cebo effect poses. It's the problem the no
cebo effect poses for modern physicians, like how much should
they tell you? If you're gonna tell somebody that they're
gonna feel nauseous for six months even though they probably won't,
(29:34):
should you tell them and give them a chance to
to basically have the psychosymatic symptom, or tell them they're
going to feel great. Well, that's another one. Somebody says,
the solution to this is just frame it differently, Like,
don't say there's a chance you're gonna have um nausea
for six months. Say half of a percent of patients
(29:55):
who go through the same procedure that you're about to
go through have nausea for six months ninety nine point
five percent. Don't write you're giving them the same information.
It's just framework positively. Yeah, and uh that one doctor
who wrote the article on collectivist area said, Um, what
he recommends is not naming the illness said that can
(30:15):
help out. Um, because as soon as you give something
a name, then it just instantly you know you have
something you can call it and everyone's calling it that,
or the media picks up on it and it's a thing. Yeah,
and that's actually again one of the one of the
risk factors in the spread of mass psychogenic illness is
the larger the response, the emergency medical response to it,
(30:37):
and then hence the larger the media response to it,
the larger the outbreak tends to be. It's called line
of sight exposure. Just knowing somebody is sick or seeing
somebody sick can give you the same symptoms. I'm sure
if you can see a news story that all the
other news agencies are running that says, uh, there's been
some weird chemical leak in the air in Atlanta. Uh,
(31:00):
people are gonna start walking around and coughing and saying,
I'm not feeling so good. I have a bitter taste
in my mouth. There's microbes everywhere. Well, here's a case
from that article you sent that I think is super fascinating,
the one in upstate New York. Because it is not
a rash or um a cough for nausea, it is
(31:21):
tourette syndrome. Sixteen year old UM, young lady named Laurie Brownwell, uh,
what year was this? A couple of years ago? Yeah,
not too long ago, I think two. Um in Corinth,
New York. Um was at her school's homecoming dance and
lost consciousness. Um, this is after she had banged at
a concert. Sorry, man, I thought you were gonna leave
(31:42):
out like the best part. Yeah, she was headbanging at
a concert. I wish into a concert that was so
me too. I didn't find it anywhere. Apparently passed out
there and had passing outfits. Uh, involuntary twitching and clapping,
started twisting, her hair, fluttering, her fingers, hey, hey, hey,
starting stuff like that, and the doctor said, you know what,
You've got turette syndrome. So Tourette's syndrome is is We've
(32:06):
had a podcast on It's a real thing and it's
not psychosomatic. Um. But uh, since that time, fourteen other
students along with her, thirteen girls and one boy started
exhibiting at Leroy Junior High School. I'm sorry, Junior Senior
High School started coming down with threats, right, which is
not contagious and is not contagious at all. Um. Aaron
(32:27):
Brockovitch got on the case, um, famous environmental activists, and
she said, no, I think this has got to do
with this train derailment from nineteen seventy that dumped cyanide
all over this town. Um, and I didn't see where
they found any uh legitimate effects. Right. Again, That's the
confounding thing about mass psychogenic disorders, that it is still
(32:50):
possible that there is some weird toxin in the environment
that is causing this, Like maybe there was exposure to
cyanide that in these people's brains and all gave them turette.
And if you stand back and look at it, you're
like to Tourette syndrome isn't contagious. That doesn't mean that
you can't all come down with Tourette syndrome from exposure
(33:14):
to a toxic It's just still it's this X factor
that's out there that you can't just necessarily rule out.
Which Yeah, and I believe in that case too. The
um those fourteen students didn't end up with Tourette syndrome.
That was a good episode, man. I love Turette syndrome one. Yeah.
It's an oldie, oldie, but a goodie. And it all
came from him banging. That's how it started at a
(33:36):
Nickelback show. Yeah, because Corinth is near Canada. Canada isn't
let nickel Back out any longer? Really? Are they caged
in there? Nice? Uh? There's another case of the toxic Lady.
Did you hear this one? And Riverside, California woman named
Gloria Ramirez. Um. Yeah, she was dubbed the Toxic Lady
in n She had cervical cancer and was being tree
(34:00):
did and all the medical staff started to get sick
that was treating her. Um. This sounds gross, but they
said her body exuded a garlicky fruity smell, and her
blood had flecks of what looked like paper um, which
sounds called Morglon's actually nice, you like that um. And
they said that most of the people that got sick
(34:22):
while treating her were women, more women than men, and
they all took blood test and came back normal, and
the health department said mass hysteria. So that's funny because
I looked, I remembered that story, and I was like,
I wonder if that was mass hysteria. And I looked
it up and I found that No, it was an
environmental toxic Oh it was, That's what I found. So
they called it mass ysteria at the time, and then
(34:42):
later found out, I think like a year or two later,
she was using some sort of salve or something on
her skin and they think that in interactive with her
biochemistry and really did produce toxic toxic gas. She said
it maybe this fruit garlic sav exactly. That's interacting badly
with I pancreas. O. Well, uh, this list needs to
(35:03):
be updated that that, dude, that is a fascinating case.
People got really sick from that. I think I remember
hearing about that too. Yeah. Well, I'm glad they found
a real cause in that case from what I understand,
But that's that's that's the point. Like you can say, well,
obviously there's women were more affective than men, right, Well,
is that because there's more women in the nursing profession
(35:24):
and there were more nurses in the room. There's a
lot of different things you have to take into account
before you just write it off. Sometimes it is real,
Like sick building syndrome. Yeah, that's a tough one because
after the Opeque oil embargo, apparently people started designing buildings
to be more air tight, so your ventilation ventilation system
(35:45):
was really important, and these buildings have an aged necessarily
very well, so the ventilation system is not doing what
it's supposed to any longer, and so they think possibly
that's leading to what we know as sick building syndrome,
which is more lays it's when you don't feel good
when you go to work exactly. But some studies have
found like no, that is the better predictor of sick
(36:07):
building syndrome is job stress or job dissatisfaction. Um, if
you have a building full of people who don't like
their jobs, you're gonna have a building full of people
with sick building syndrome. But if you go on to
say like a local government's website or whatever, and you
look at sick building syndrome, it's a it's treated as
a real thing. Yeah, well, it definitely affects your gastro
(36:28):
intestinal like stress does well. Also, apparently it can set
off bouts of asthma um, which is another reason why
they think it might have something to do with like
volatile organic compounds in the ventilation system or new carpeting,
that kind of stuff offcasting. Man, you you smell that
stuff when you open up a new product. Right. There's
also the dancing plague, which we mentioned briefly. Tell me
(36:49):
about it. Uh Fraul Trophia July four, eighteen went out
on the streets of Strasbourg, France, and started dancing even
though there was no music, and dancing like a maniac
for three straight days, and all these people started dancing
with her, saying this is a good time. Um said.
Within a month a hundred people were dancing with her
(37:10):
and couldn't stop and hyperventilating, hallucinating, some drop dead of
heart attack and stroke and exhaustion. And the authority said,
let's just hire a band and let him dance, dance
it out because they've got the hot blood, is what
they called it. And so they did, and um, a
(37:30):
lot of people died as a result. It said four
dred people in the end were struck. Uh. I don't
think they died, but we're dancers. And then it just stopped,
and that's when they blame a lot of people blame
on ergot poisoning, which we've mentioned before, poisoning, and those
people are clearly tripping on something. They got the hot blood.
But what it sounds like you just described is basically
(37:52):
how Tom Hanks invented jogging in the seventies. Yogging. Yeah. Yeah,
he just started running and people started following. I I
wish that part had been cut out of that movie. Yeah.
I thought that it was a weird thing that should
have been on the editing room floor. They really kind
of derailed things for a while for me. I don't
think that movie's age well though. Uh. Other people say
(38:15):
though that it was Sydenham's Korea disorder linked to strep
throughout and rheumatic fever that causes dance like twitches. Um.
And then of course modern medical historians say it was
mass psychosis. I would go with that one. Yeah, I
mean back then it made more sense though, when during
the Salem witch trials and before they knew anything about
(38:37):
medicine and you could just say you got the hot
blood or you're having the fits, like yeah, exactly. These
modern cases the ones that really freaked me out because
so much as explainable. Now here's the thing that chuck.
We've always explained. It was something that comes easily to mind.
So back in the day before science and medicine, it
(38:59):
was the will possessing you. And don't think that people
weren't freaked out when they thought that the devil was
there and possessing people in the same way that you know,
you're freaked out by the idea that it's cyanide in
the soil from a train derailment, from just exactly, which
is the deadliest of all the manias, but it's just
as real to the experiencer. And it all comes down
(39:23):
to people just basically being sick of the establishment and
letting loose for a while. I don't want to go
to work nice, so I'll dance. Have you got anything else? Uh, no, sir.
If you want to know more about collective hysteria, which
is the name of this article. It typed those words
in the search bar at how stuff works dot com
and it will bring it up. And I said, search
(39:45):
bars means it's time for listener mail. I'm gonna call
this UM episode on Grief. We've got a lot of
great feedback and that continue. Uh, they continue to roll in. Hey, guys,
just dumbled upon your podcast through my tune in radio app.
I guess that's a mini plug. We're available there now. Um,
(40:05):
I've devoured almost all of the six D plus shows.
May be a new listener, but I'm already a lifelong fan.
So why I'm writing in guys is I lost my
twin sister back in two thousand ten. It was a
rough time because as a fraternal twin me being the boy,
I looked at her not only as a sister, but
as a mother and friend. Too. Long story short, I
wanted to comment on the Grief Show some time ago.
(40:27):
I've dealt with my grief through my artwork. I'm a
small town artist from Johnson City, Tennessee, and I rarely
can get noticed or any attention with my art. I
wanted to share my new piece I've just finished. After
listening to how comic books work. I'm a huge fan
of Marvel comics and I hope you both enjoy this.
And he sent this really cool. I think it was
like every member of the Marvel universe had to be
(40:48):
in this picture that he did. I didn't see that one.
It's really really neat, just jam packed full of Marvel
comic heroes and villains. Um. So, Josh and Chuck, thanks
for the inspiration. Last and getting through every day at
the office at p S. My twin Jessica passed away
from epilepsy actually a condition called sue dep Sudden unexplained
death of epilepsy. My mother is trying to raise awareness
(41:10):
because November is epilepsy Awareness month. So if you guys
wouldn't mind mentioning this on the show, she would be
so happy for that. Also, an epilepsy show would be
cool too. Um. Not a lot is discussed about it,
and that is Jason Flack and Jason wrote you back
that is heartbreaking about your twin sister. Very sorry to
hear that, um, and we will definitely do a show
(41:31):
on epilepsy. And since this is November, though, people should
go out and find out what they can during National
Epilepsy month. We'll follow up with the show. I don't
know if it'll be in November, but we'll get to
that one for sure. And thanks for that piece of art.
And if anyone is interested in a great comic book
artist from Johnson City, Tennessee, do a lot worse than
Jason Flack. Jason, thank you very much for sharing that
(41:54):
with everybody. That means a lot to us. If you
want to share with us and all of our listeners
out there, you can tweet to us at s y
s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook, dot
com slash Stuff you Should Know. You can send us
an email with attached artwork to stuff Podcast at how
stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at
(42:15):
at home on the web. Stuff you Should Know dot com.
Stuff you Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the i Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
M Hey everyone, it's Josh and I've chosen for this
week's s Y s K Select our two thousand fourteen
episode on the inappropriately named collective Hysteria. It turns out
that people can have a real effect on how other
people feel and behave. So take this as a sign
to be nice and maybe even soothing to others. And
(00:21):
while you're working on that, enjoy the super cool episode
on some super weird psychology. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know,
(00:54):
a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as
Charles w Chuck Bryant, and Jerry's over there to the left,
and that makes the Stuff you Should Know got the
a team. Yeah, in the hissy, I call face what Oh,
(01:18):
I'm face of course your face look at you. I
would be a combination of Murdoch and Mr Tamnik. Yeah.
Oh your hair is kind of spiky in the middle today. Yeah, Jerry,
I don't know what she'd be. I guess she'd be
the leader. She'd be Hannibal. Oh, yeah, you know she's
smoking a cigar right now and wearing a black glove.
When did you start smoking cigars? Jerry, that's weird. Very timely,
(01:43):
I said, a team. I don't want to slag off
guest produce a knoll. He's not exactly be team. No,
we'll just call ourselves the O G S. Okay, now
that we have that established, we are the O G S.
We need bowling shirts that say as much on the
bad are you're feeling good? I'm feeling uh nauseous and dizzy?
(02:04):
Oh well, Chuck, did you happen to see somebody else
who is nauseous and dizzy? Well, Jerry was last week,
and then a few more people in the office, So
I just figured we all had the same thing. All right,
I'm gonna diagnose this, okay. It's called collective hysteria, also known,
I think more appropriately is mass psychogenic disorder. I think
(02:25):
when you add the word hysteria to this, it ticks
on certain dimensions that a lot of people could find
very objectionable, you know, hysterics, hysteria. It's like um dogs
and cats living together. Yeah, but I think it has
it has a definite um gender specific connotation to it
(02:46):
from over the years, like women were supposedly very hysterical.
So the the idea of diagnosing somebody as hysterical under
any circumstances. It's kind of it's had him out to
panning the patting him on the head. Yeah, here, nice lady,
you're you're just a little hysterical. Do you just go
calm down and bake something? Right? Yeah? Stop being crazy?
(03:06):
Uh no. Mass psychogenic disorder instead is just kind of like, whoa,
your brain just did something pretty neat, And that is
the case for mass psychogenic disorder if you ask me. Um.
In this article Chuck written by Jacob Silverman, Jeopardy champion,
Yeah well yeah, yeah, you won on Jeopardy. That makes
him a champion? Yeah, I think so. He wasn't like
(03:27):
the ultimate Champion, but he won a couple of episodes, right,
which is why they should have a word for. I
guess like the champion is like the one who won
at all Ken Jennings, Yeah, or um Watson, who's that
the IBM computer? Yeah, so Jeopardy winner. Jacob Silverman wrote
this article years back, and he did a pretty great
(03:49):
job of citing a contemporary outbreak of mass psychogenic disorder
that had been going on around that time down in Mexico,
down Mexico way in Chalco, Mexico at a boarding school.
There apparently was a girls boarding school and the girls
that went to school, they were just twelve to seventeen,
(04:11):
and all of a sudden, they started, well, there was
an outbreak, a weird outbreak. There was vomiting, I believe,
trouble walking. Um, there was fever, that's weird, nausea, and
so the the people running this boarding school like, um,
what's going on? This is not good? Yeah uh, and
(04:32):
they had no idea. The girls went on Christmas break
for ten days, came back, and the thing just took
off again like wildfire. Yeah, six hundred girls, um showed
these symptoms and nobody could figure it out. Um. They
did a lot of tests, they brought in people to
like check out the facilities, and because as you'll see,
there's a trend there. Um, you know here in the West,
(04:56):
they start to blame it, usually on um, like environmental
poisoning of some kind. Right, Um, you know there's some
sort of toxin present that is poisoned everybody. They didn't
find anything there, and eventually, um, they said, this is uh,
what do you call it? Psychosomatic? Mass psychogenic disorder? Okay,
(05:16):
mass psychogenic disorder, but No, that is one of the
one of the names of mass psychogenic disorder collective hysteria,
mass hysteria, or mass psychosomatic reaction. They're all saying the
same thing they are, which is you're not well, but
so you're not really sick. But that is not exactly true,
because that's one thing that differentiates this from something that's
(05:37):
just in your head, as you actually do manifest physical symptoms. Right. Yeah,
there's this article written by a m d Named Timothy F.
Jones from the Tennessee Department of Health way back in
the heady days of two thousand, your two thousand the future, um,
and he writes that you, if you are experiencing mass
psychogenic disorder, it is not just in your head. That
(06:00):
the symptoms that you have are actually very real. Even
though there's no toxic cause they couldn't find some sort
of environmental poison or anything like that, the symptoms are
extremely real. Yeah, it's just psycho somatic. It's just basically
the brain has been tricked into causing this response. Yeah,
and this has happened. Um. They've documented about eighty cases
(06:23):
throughout history, and apparently the National Institutes of Health gets
about two cases per week reported. But um, which is
I mean, like that's that's way more yeah, common than
than you would think. You know, yeah, I would think
there'd be more than eight, because I mean, these have happened.
If you go back and look at I mean, there's
all sorts of crazy list on the internet about these
cases that date back to like the fourteenth century medieval
(06:47):
dancing mania was one of them. Yeah, the dancing plague, Yeah, yeah,
that's in there. The Salem witchcraft trials or the Salem witchcraft.
I guess what led to the trials was UM supposedly
attributed to this kind of thing. Uh. One weird thing
about this condition is more times than not it is
(07:10):
affects females, Yeah, and young females even more specifically teenagers
or even younger, which is as far as it goes
right now, inexplicable UM. And it's kind of a prickly issue,
you know, Like again you kind of come back to
the idea of calling it hysteria. You know the fact
that it does tend to afflict women or girls more
(07:33):
than them boys. UM is apparently one means of diagnosing
psychogenic disordered mass psychogenically that's like one of the first
things we'll say is like all this the sickness is
happening in this place, the school wherever, and the doctor
will say is it a bunch of girls? And then
that will clue them in that hey, this might be
what we're dealing with here and the but the problem
(07:54):
is no one has any idea why. And there have
been explanations of things like, um, uh, I guess girls
this is this is girls culturally acceptable outlet for raging
against the patriarchy. Sure, even if they don't necessarily feel
that that's what they're doing, this is there there? Uh,
(08:17):
this is the symptoms of that. That's one. Yeah, I
thought this was a pretty interesting part. What article was
that from Slate? Uh? There was h Yeah, one called
mass Asteria and Upstate New York by Ruth Graham was
on Slate. That was a good one. It was a
really good one. And we'll get to that case in
a sect. But um, I thought it was pretty interesting.
In one part it says, um, and this is a
quote from someone writing about something and said inform, if
(08:39):
not unconscious intent, it is to protest the sexual repressiveness,
rigid double standard of female team culture. Um. But they
were writing about Beatlemania, Yeah, which is interesting because it's
sort of has a similar vibe of uh, young ladies
being repressed, um, not having an outlet, and so they
(09:00):
see the Beatles and they go berserk and faint and
cry and scream collectively. Whereas boys they're more prone to
just act out if they're not feeling good. Girls are
trained to keep things inward. And they also point out
that ladies and young ladies are more prone to seek
a doctor's help for something. Um. They say that may
account for the bias right there, like guys just won't
(09:22):
go to the doctor exactly. You have to be careful though,
and in just diagnosing mass psychogenic disorder, you physicians out
there who are listening the encounter a case like this, um,
it just by basing it on the fact that it
is affecting more girls than boys. Because there's at least
one case in Great Britain where I think girls were
(09:43):
afflicted by more than half. More than double the number
of girls were afflicted by this, and it turned out
that they were retaining cucumbers being served in in the
lunch room. Yeah, and everyone knows boys hate cucumbers, and
so I mean this is they didn't need anyone, right,
But this is one of the issues with dealing with
UM mass psychogenic disorder, and that it looks and acts
(10:05):
a lot like some sort of weird epidemic. That basically
it looks like either a UM something like bioterrorism. Yeah, uh,
a rapidly spreading affection infection or affection of telemania and
then acute toxic exposure. That's what it looks like. It's
like one person gets sick, this is your index case,
(10:28):
and all of a sudden, everyone around them suddenly has
the same symptoms. Yeah. And it's like you said, it's
super dangerous to just dismiss that as oh it's all
in your head, silly little ladies. Uh, you can't do
that because what if it is something for real? But
it's also a double edged sword, is that doctor pointed out, Um,
(10:48):
you start ordering batteries of tests and it it It
can go both ways. It can Um. What the old
saying is, if you order enough tests, you're gonna find
something so it can fuel that fire. But you all
so can't not run any tests and just dismiss it. Uh.
So it's a very fine line that physicians walk when
dealing with stuff like this. For sure. Indeed, apparently UM
(11:10):
study of mass psychogenic disorder has found that it's more
prevalent in isolated communities and in situations where um, they
are highly rigid, formalized structured rules, like a Catholic school
of Mexico exactly UM. Or again um Salem, Massachusetts in
(11:31):
the seventeenth century, you know. Um. And apparently between nineteen
seventy three and half of all the outbreaks of psychogenetic
or psychogenic illness took place in schools, so that that's
possibly in part by due to kids being susceptible to
(11:54):
it more um, but also because of that that rigid
formalized structure. Yeah. And there's also usually a top down effect,
like it'll start with a teacher or an older student,
and then the younger students follow suit, which if you're
talking influence, would make sense for sure. There was one
very famous case UM. Apparently there's not very many actual
(12:17):
academic studies on this, but there's one that came out
of the New England Journal of Medicine UM that that
described a case in Tennessee where a teacher noticed, um,
some weird gas odor, A gassy odor, uh, like the
chemical kind, Yeah, not like the guy on the front
(12:40):
road too, did right exactly um, and she apparently started
suffering symptoms. Uh, and all of a sudden, like a
hundred and eighties students and teachers had to go to
the emergency room. The school was shut down for two weeks.
That did all this environmental testing, couldn't find anything, and
finally traced it back to UM psychogenic a mass psychogenic disorder,
(13:05):
if that's what didn't and then everyone In most of
these cases we should point out everyone. It starts feeling better, yes,
like in Mexico, and then at school in Tennessee. It's
it's not like they went on to die or anything. Yeah.
So in the school in Mexico, the these girls were
at a boarding school. They were only allowed to see
their parents, I think like three times a year. Yeah,
(13:27):
they couldn't even call. It's like it sounds more like
a prison. They were allowed letters when they went home.
Immediately their symptoms cleared up. The problem is that doesn't
automatically say oh, well, it's obviously mass psychogenic disorder. It
could be an environmental toxin that they were being exposed
to still at the school and we're removed from. But
(13:48):
I think the the definite prognosis is mass psychogenic disorder
in this case. That's right. So the no Seebo effect
(14:17):
we talked about that and what the placebo effect, Well,
that makes sense. Yeah, I was trying to be more clever.
I thought we were more clever than that. Uh, no cebo,
I think we said in that other podcast it was
Latin for eyeshall harm. And that's basically whereas you take
a placebo thinking it's going to help you out, and
it does help you out because the mind is powerful.
(14:40):
The no Seebo effect is thinking something bad will result,
like my teachers getting sick. I think I feel a
little sick too, and then oh, hey, my neighbor is
feeling a little sick. I think I'm feeling a little
sick too. Or this this drug trial that I'm on,
I was told that I could possibly get some sort
of gastro intestinal distress. Yeah, and even though I've been
(15:01):
given a sugar pill, I'm now going yeah because in
my mind because of the no cebo effect. Uh. There
was a famous experiment or case from six where there
was a woman who had a rose allergy and they
showed her an artificial rose and she began to I
guess it was convincing and she began to have her
(15:22):
allergic reaction and they said, ah, ha, it's fake and
you're faking, and uh she said, oh, well, I think
I'm feeling better now, and supposedly that cured her of
her real allergy to real roses. I couldn't find a
lot to back that up. But is it it is
a story? Yeah, well no, that's a I mean it
(15:44):
was in I can't remember the journal, but it was
really Yeah, it was a real deal thing. And um,
I don't I didn't get to the bottom of why
they presented this woman with a fake rose or whatever,
but they definitely didn't. This definitely happened. And um, the
the even the author of the study was saying, like
(16:05):
this woman, she wasn't faking. It was like she she
had real symptoms hives or hives exactly. I can see those. Um.
I think they call it like a rose cold or
something like that. You can get you know, stuffy, your
eyes are watering, your your nose is running, that kind
of thing. And what's interesting is some researchers have studied
(16:27):
the no cebo effect and they basically have isolated this
this chemical that gets released when the no cebo effects
going on. And again we should say it's not just
um making your nose runny or releasing histamines or anything
like that is pain too, Like you can you can
experience pain even though nothing's there to give you pain,
(16:50):
just because of the no cebo effect. What they found
was a um, A, I guess, uh, hormone, I believe
Are you ready? I'm going to try this one. Uh,
Cola cisto kinon. That sounds great, thanks man. I haven't
looked at the word, but it sounds right. Coli cisto kinon. Um.
(17:11):
Do you see it now? Yeah, that's totally right. I
totally did. So. It's a hormone, right, and it gets
released and it actually, um, it helps you experience pain.
So it's a nasty little hormone. But they found in
testing with the no cebo effect that if you block this,
you can also block the no sebo effect. So that
proves two things. Does that block pain though, like your
(17:33):
pain receptors. So does that mean if you slam your
hand in the door you won't feel it if you
can block this? Yes? So um, if you can block
Coli cisto knon, yes, it will keep you from um
hypersensitivity to pain, I believe. And this guy named Fabrizio
Benedetti I think was also in the Strokes Back. Yeah.
(17:57):
He uh. He was testing out the no eebo effect
and found that if he told people that he was
giving them an injection, which is it's a pretty cruel
test but effective. These post stop people who had just
come out of surgery. Uh, We're given an injection and
told this injection is going to increase your pain in
(18:17):
thirty minutes. I'm sorry, we have to give it to
it's part of the procedure. He gave some people an
injection of saline and they reported an increase in pain
and they all went behind the two way mirror and laughed,
right yeah, they're like yeah. And then they gave somebody,
like the other group, the control group, a chemical an
(18:39):
injection that blocks that pain. But they were told that
it was going to increase their pain. But they were
given a chemical that blocks coal is sister kinon, and
the cbo effect didn't take place. They didn't report an
increase in pain even though they were told they would. Yes,
so they So this guy is saying, like the no
cebo effect is like when when they say, it's not
(19:02):
just in your head. You're experiencing the same thing as
if you were experiencing somebody stabbing you. Well, what it
is really? You know, that's when you have to start
asking yourself those deep philosophical questions. Interesting. Um, there's another
case that's Have you ever seen the movie Safe, the
(19:22):
Todd Haynes movie with Julianne Moore. No, it's from like
the mid nineties, and she played a lady that um
started to have environmental sickness, um, just in the air,
and she's got sort of like increasingly um crazy as
the movie went on, as far as scrubbing things and
locking herself in her house and making her house a
(19:43):
clean environment. It was good and um there's there's a
true story though of a lady in London, UM named
Debbie Bird. She's a health spot manager that says that
she's allergic to E m F electro magnetic fields. And
it's an actual thing now you know, there's more than
her claiming. It's called e S electro magnetic sensitivity. Where
(20:07):
she has basically transformed her house. She painted it black.
She said she's allergic to computers, cell phones, microwaves. She
had her house rewired UH to make it basically e
M F free. Uh. She and her husband sleep under
a silver plated mosquito net to keep out radio waves
and covered all her windows with protective films, and she
(20:30):
said she feel a lot better now. So I saw that, Yes,
electromagnetic sensitivity, that if you expose somebody to a an
electromagnetic field and then just tell them that you are
and don't they have the same reaction, which would suggest
that it's it's no cibo. Well, it's super fascinating because
(20:50):
you cee cases like this from that to like gluten
sensitivity becoming a big thing now and people some people
contend that, well, it's maybe collective hysteria going on, and
if you think you're going to be sensitive to gluten,
then you're gonna be sensitive to things that contain gluten.
And I'm not saying that people because that's a very
hot topic. Sure it is, but um, some people have
(21:12):
claimed that, well, we'll talk a little bit more about
things that exacerbate the mass psychogenic disorder and the no
cebo effect right after this, so chuck. Back in two
(21:37):
thousand seven, in New Zealand, UH, a drug called el
trokes in it was a pretty widespread drug in New Zealand.
It's a hormone replacement drug, and it was the only
one that the government would pay for, so most people
who were on this hormone replacement therapy, we're using l
trokes in. And it had been that way for like decades.
(21:57):
It was just an established trug Glaxos Smith client hormone
replacement Glaxo Smith Klin. I think just those there's no
welcome involved. Um changed just the like the outer the
inner qualities of it, like the shape of the pill,
the color um and I think that's about it. But
(22:18):
the the active ingredient was exactly the same in two
thousand seven, uh And when they released it, all of
a sudden, some reports of bad side effects were starting
to trickle in, and the government was like, wait, what's
going on here. It got a little bit of media
attention and more reports started trickling in, and then the
(22:41):
media attention grew, and the reports grew and grew, and
apparently the reporting of adverse effects of altrusin increased two
thousandfold in a year and a half because of the
look of the bill. Because of the look of the pill,
they went back and studied this, and they found that
in areas where there was more reporting about these adverse
(23:03):
effects being reported for all trucs, and the more adverse
effects were being reported in that area. And that kind
of reveals one of the um risk factors for mass
psychogenic disorder is the media. It's actually spread through the
media most easily. Yeah, they have a point, though, I mean, um,
I know in this article too, it points out that
(23:25):
pills that are blue and green are usually associated with drowsiness.
Pills that are orange or yellow are not. And I
don't know if that's why they market it that way
or if it's the opposite, as we just see it
that way because of products like niquil and day quill.
But the one that makes you sleepy is green and blue,
and the one that keeps you awake or keep you
(23:45):
awake but doesn't make you drowsy orange. I thought about it.
I think, I mean, what do you associate with like
daytime sunrise? Yellow? Orange makes sense? What do you associate
with nighttime like something tranquil like blue? Yeah, Scotch gotch
Hamber Uh, yeah, I mean you think of that's what
I I think it came from. I think the pills
(24:07):
came after the association rather than the other way around. Yeah.
I think I even like when I get a prescription
for something, when I see the pill, I make a
judgment on it before I've even had it, just by saying, well,
don't look at that thing that Yeah, that's a horse pill,
or that's a capsule with you know, powdery stuff inside
(24:27):
that's different than the chalky one. It's you. I think
you just make an association. I don't think I have
any preconceived notions on what a larger pill will do
to me or a capsule will do to me other
than a tablet. But I think it's interesting, though, how
you make these judgment calls, but without even thinking about Yeah,
totally you know. I mean like you're you're you probably
(24:48):
don't sit there and look at a pill in your hand.
You just take it and just make some sort of, um,
almost unconscious judgments about it. Yeah, it may remind you
another pill that helps you that you're not even remembering exactly,
So that would be placebo. Yeah that's great. No cebo
effect not great. Poses no, and it poses a lot
of problems. For instance, there was a study I think
(25:12):
in the nineties that found that Women who believed that
they were prone to heart disease were four times likelier
to die of heart disease than women who didn't believe
they are prone to it, even though they had all
the exact same risk factors, basically the same risk risk factors.
There was nothing differentiating these women aside from a belief
that they were going to die from heart disease or
(25:34):
a belief that they weren't, and that led to a
four time four fold increase in deaths from that. Just
basically from a belief, is what it suggests. Yeah, we well,
it's sort of like the I know it's kind of cheesy,
but the p M A the positive mental attitude. I
think we've all know someone who walks around so and
(25:55):
so sick. Oh I know I'm going to get it.
I just know I'm going to get sick, or you know,
I just know I'm gonna get cancer because it runs
in my family. That I think that has an effect
on things. I have to agree. I know some of
our more skeptical listeners will are pulling their hair out
right now, but I totally agree with you. When we
did our show in Toronto on the way back, you
me and I flow out of Buffalo, and I was
(26:17):
feeling a little down, but like at the point where
I feel like you can talk yourself into staying healthy,
positive mental attitude. I guess that's what you call it.
But we were leaving right at about dusk, and the
sun was just beaming through the windows and illuminating every
single microbe visible microbe in the air. I could see
(26:40):
them like just going into my nose in my mouth,
and I'm like, I couldn't stop, Like I couldn't. I
was like, I'm not gonna get sick. I'm not gonna
get sick. And man, did I ever get sick. But
I noticed that right when we took off, and no,
you know what it was. Somebody shut one of their
um their window covers. Oh the shade, shade exactly is
(27:02):
the word that I was looking for. Somebody shut their
shade and I couldn't see it anymore, and I immediately
started to feel less symptomatic. Immediately, it was like turning
off a light. And I still got sick, but I
was just drowning. And basically what my brain was interpreting
is like being assaulted by foreign invaders, which I am
all the time, but I normally can't see them. Yeah,
(27:24):
well I've done I do that all the time when
I opened my uh the curtains in the bedroom and
I'll see you in the morning. I'll see that stuff
in the air and I just think, oh, man, that's
what I'm walking around breathing in everything. Dog hair and
cat hair and Emily hair. So your lungs are just
chocked full of it. So one of the one of
(27:44):
the problems this poses chuck for physicians is that we
expect doctors, or we want doctors to be transparent, to
not lie to us. Yeah, we've talked a lot about
this lately. I feel like, yeah, we've talked a lot
about diseases. Some of our um I pochondriac listeners have
been like police talking about diseases because now I've got Morgellons,
(28:07):
I'm gonna have like some sort of toxic exposure. Um
and then very soon leprosy spoiler. So uh, the problem
is is if you tell somebody that's going into surgery, hey,
by the way, um, you know you you might have
(28:28):
trouble walking, you might feel nauseous for the next six months.
You like, all this stuff that could be associated with
which we demand from our doctors. It's been shown that
if you are fearful or in despair going into surgery,
that's associated with longer healing times and a higher risk
of post operative infection. Right, So, if you have the
(28:49):
no cebo effect where doctors are saying, okay, if I
tell somebody, And it's been proven time after time that
in drug trials, people who are still are given placebo
will drop out of drug trials because they're experiencing these
negative side effects even though they're given the sugar pill. So,
if you're a doctor and you you know that you
(29:12):
are telling somebody something that ultimately may end up harming them,
and you've sworn an oath to do no harm, you've
got a conundrum going on right now. And that's what
the no cebo effect poses. It's the problem the no
cebo effect poses for modern physicians, like how much should
they tell you? If you're gonna tell somebody that they're
gonna feel nauseous for six months even though they probably won't,
(29:34):
should you tell them and give them a chance to
to basically have the psychosymatic symptom, or tell them they're
going to feel great. Well, that's another one. Somebody says,
the solution to this is just frame it differently, Like,
don't say there's a chance you're gonna have um nausea
for six months. Say half of a percent of patients
(29:55):
who go through the same procedure that you're about to
go through have nausea for six months ninety nine point
five percent. Don't write you're giving them the same information.
It's just framework positively. Yeah, and uh that one doctor
who wrote the article on collectivist area said, Um, what
he recommends is not naming the illness said that can
(30:15):
help out. Um, because as soon as you give something
a name, then it just instantly you know you have
something you can call it and everyone's calling it that,
or the media picks up on it and it's a thing. Yeah,
and that's actually again one of the one of the
risk factors in the spread of mass psychogenic illness is
the larger the response, the emergency medical response to it,
(30:37):
and then hence the larger the media response to it,
the larger the outbreak tends to be. It's called line
of sight exposure. Just knowing somebody is sick or seeing
somebody sick can give you the same symptoms. I'm sure
if you can see a news story that all the
other news agencies are running that says, uh, there's been
some weird chemical leak in the air in Atlanta. Uh,
(31:00):
people are gonna start walking around and coughing and saying,
I'm not feeling so good. I have a bitter taste
in my mouth. There's microbes everywhere. Well, here's a case
from that article you sent that I think is super fascinating,
the one in upstate New York. Because it is not
a rash or um a cough for nausea, it is
(31:21):
tourette syndrome. Sixteen year old UM, young lady named Laurie Brownwell, uh,
what year was this? A couple of years ago? Yeah,
not too long ago, I think two. Um in Corinth,
New York. Um was at her school's homecoming dance and
lost consciousness. Um, this is after she had banged at
a concert. Sorry, man, I thought you were gonna leave
(31:42):
out like the best part. Yeah, she was headbanging at
a concert. I wish into a concert that was so
me too. I didn't find it anywhere. Apparently passed out
there and had passing outfits. Uh, involuntary twitching and clapping,
started twisting, her hair, fluttering, her fingers, hey, hey, hey,
starting stuff like that, and the doctor said, you know what,
You've got turette syndrome. So Tourette's syndrome is is We've
(32:06):
had a podcast on It's a real thing and it's
not psychosomatic. Um. But uh, since that time, fourteen other
students along with her, thirteen girls and one boy started
exhibiting at Leroy Junior High School. I'm sorry, Junior Senior
High School started coming down with threats, right, which is
not contagious and is not contagious at all. Um. Aaron
(32:27):
Brockovitch got on the case, um, famous environmental activists, and
she said, no, I think this has got to do
with this train derailment from nineteen seventy that dumped cyanide
all over this town. Um, and I didn't see where
they found any uh legitimate effects. Right. Again, That's the
confounding thing about mass psychogenic disorders, that it is still
(32:50):
possible that there is some weird toxin in the environment
that is causing this, Like maybe there was exposure to
cyanide that in these people's brains and all gave them turette.
And if you stand back and look at it, you're
like to Tourette syndrome isn't contagious. That doesn't mean that
you can't all come down with Tourette syndrome from exposure
(33:14):
to a toxic It's just still it's this X factor
that's out there that you can't just necessarily rule out.
Which Yeah, and I believe in that case too. The
um those fourteen students didn't end up with Tourette syndrome.
That was a good episode, man. I love Turette syndrome one. Yeah.
It's an oldie, oldie, but a goodie. And it all
came from him banging. That's how it started at a
(33:36):
Nickelback show. Yeah, because Corinth is near Canada. Canada isn't
let nickel Back out any longer? Really? Are they caged
in there? Nice? Uh? There's another case of the toxic Lady.
Did you hear this one? And Riverside, California woman named
Gloria Ramirez. Um. Yeah, she was dubbed the Toxic Lady
in n She had cervical cancer and was being tree
(34:00):
did and all the medical staff started to get sick
that was treating her. Um. This sounds gross, but they
said her body exuded a garlicky fruity smell, and her
blood had flecks of what looked like paper um, which
sounds called Morglon's actually nice, you like that um. And
they said that most of the people that got sick
(34:22):
while treating her were women, more women than men, and
they all took blood test and came back normal, and
the health department said mass hysteria. So that's funny because
I looked, I remembered that story, and I was like,
I wonder if that was mass hysteria. And I looked
it up and I found that No, it was an
environmental toxic Oh it was, That's what I found. So
they called it mass ysteria at the time, and then
(34:42):
later found out, I think like a year or two later,
she was using some sort of salve or something on
her skin and they think that in interactive with her
biochemistry and really did produce toxic toxic gas. She said
it maybe this fruit garlic sav exactly. That's interacting badly
with I pancreas. O. Well, uh, this list needs to
(35:03):
be updated that that, dude, that is a fascinating case.
People got really sick from that. I think I remember
hearing about that too. Yeah. Well, I'm glad they found
a real cause in that case from what I understand,
But that's that's that's the point. Like you can say, well,
obviously there's women were more affective than men, right, Well,
is that because there's more women in the nursing profession
(35:24):
and there were more nurses in the room. There's a
lot of different things you have to take into account
before you just write it off. Sometimes it is real,
Like sick building syndrome. Yeah, that's a tough one because
after the Opeque oil embargo, apparently people started designing buildings
to be more air tight, so your ventilation ventilation system
(35:45):
was really important, and these buildings have an aged necessarily
very well, so the ventilation system is not doing what
it's supposed to any longer, and so they think possibly
that's leading to what we know as sick building syndrome,
which is more lays it's when you don't feel good
when you go to work exactly. But some studies have
found like no, that is the better predictor of sick
(36:07):
building syndrome is job stress or job dissatisfaction. Um, if
you have a building full of people who don't like
their jobs, you're gonna have a building full of people
with sick building syndrome. But if you go on to
say like a local government's website or whatever, and you
look at sick building syndrome, it's a it's treated as
a real thing. Yeah, well, it definitely affects your gastro
(36:28):
intestinal like stress does well. Also, apparently it can set
off bouts of asthma um, which is another reason why
they think it might have something to do with like
volatile organic compounds in the ventilation system or new carpeting,
that kind of stuff offcasting. Man, you you smell that
stuff when you open up a new product. Right. There's
also the dancing plague, which we mentioned briefly. Tell me
(36:49):
about it. Uh Fraul Trophia July four, eighteen went out
on the streets of Strasbourg, France, and started dancing even
though there was no music, and dancing like a maniac
for three straight days, and all these people started dancing
with her, saying this is a good time. Um said.
Within a month a hundred people were dancing with her
(37:10):
and couldn't stop and hyperventilating, hallucinating, some drop dead of
heart attack and stroke and exhaustion. And the authority said,
let's just hire a band and let him dance, dance
it out because they've got the hot blood, is what
they called it. And so they did, and um, a
(37:30):
lot of people died as a result. It said four
dred people in the end were struck. Uh. I don't
think they died, but we're dancers. And then it just stopped,
and that's when they blame a lot of people blame
on ergot poisoning, which we've mentioned before, poisoning, and those
people are clearly tripping on something. They got the hot blood.
But what it sounds like you just described is basically
(37:52):
how Tom Hanks invented jogging in the seventies. Yogging. Yeah. Yeah,
he just started running and people started following. I I
wish that part had been cut out of that movie. Yeah.
I thought that it was a weird thing that should
have been on the editing room floor. They really kind
of derailed things for a while for me. I don't
think that movie's age well though. Uh. Other people say
(38:15):
though that it was Sydenham's Korea disorder linked to strep
throughout and rheumatic fever that causes dance like twitches. Um.
And then of course modern medical historians say it was
mass psychosis. I would go with that one. Yeah, I
mean back then it made more sense though, when during
the Salem witch trials and before they knew anything about
(38:37):
medicine and you could just say you got the hot
blood or you're having the fits, like yeah, exactly. These
modern cases the ones that really freaked me out because
so much as explainable. Now here's the thing that chuck.
We've always explained. It was something that comes easily to mind.
So back in the day before science and medicine, it
(38:59):
was the will possessing you. And don't think that people
weren't freaked out when they thought that the devil was
there and possessing people in the same way that you know,
you're freaked out by the idea that it's cyanide in
the soil from a train derailment, from just exactly, which
is the deadliest of all the manias, but it's just
as real to the experiencer. And it all comes down
(39:23):
to people just basically being sick of the establishment and
letting loose for a while. I don't want to go
to work nice, so I'll dance. Have you got anything else? Uh, no, sir.
If you want to know more about collective hysteria, which
is the name of this article. It typed those words
in the search bar at how stuff works dot com
and it will bring it up. And I said, search
(39:45):
bars means it's time for listener mail. I'm gonna call
this UM episode on Grief. We've got a lot of
great feedback and that continue. Uh, they continue to roll in. Hey, guys,
just dumbled upon your podcast through my tune in radio app.
I guess that's a mini plug. We're available there now. Um,
(40:05):
I've devoured almost all of the six D plus shows.
May be a new listener, but I'm already a lifelong fan.
So why I'm writing in guys is I lost my
twin sister back in two thousand ten. It was a
rough time because as a fraternal twin me being the boy,
I looked at her not only as a sister, but
as a mother and friend. Too. Long story short, I
wanted to comment on the Grief Show some time ago.
(40:27):
I've dealt with my grief through my artwork. I'm a
small town artist from Johnson City, Tennessee, and I rarely
can get noticed or any attention with my art. I
wanted to share my new piece I've just finished. After
listening to how comic books work. I'm a huge fan
of Marvel comics and I hope you both enjoy this.
And he sent this really cool. I think it was
like every member of the Marvel universe had to be
(40:48):
in this picture that he did. I didn't see that one.
It's really really neat, just jam packed full of Marvel
comic heroes and villains. Um. So, Josh and Chuck, thanks
for the inspiration. Last and getting through every day at
the office at p S. My twin Jessica passed away
from epilepsy actually a condition called sue dep Sudden unexplained
death of epilepsy. My mother is trying to raise awareness
(41:10):
because November is epilepsy Awareness month. So if you guys
wouldn't mind mentioning this on the show, she would be
so happy for that. Also, an epilepsy show would be
cool too. Um. Not a lot is discussed about it,
and that is Jason Flack and Jason wrote you back
that is heartbreaking about your twin sister. Very sorry to
hear that, um, and we will definitely do a show
(41:31):
on epilepsy. And since this is November, though, people should
go out and find out what they can during National
Epilepsy month. We'll follow up with the show. I don't
know if it'll be in November, but we'll get to
that one for sure. And thanks for that piece of art.
And if anyone is interested in a great comic book
artist from Johnson City, Tennessee, do a lot worse than
Jason Flack. Jason, thank you very much for sharing that
(41:54):
with everybody. That means a lot to us. If you
want to share with us and all of our listeners
out there, you can tweet to us at s y
s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook, dot
com slash Stuff you Should Know. You can send us
an email with attached artwork to stuff Podcast at how
stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at
(42:15):
at home on the web. Stuff you Should Know dot com.
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