0 some congregations of Calvinistic Methodists in Wales became so
fervent that they began leaping for joy. The mania spread, and gave rise
to a sect called the "Jumpers." A similar outbreak took place afterward
in England, and has been repeated at various times and places since in
our own country.(403)

(403) See Adam's Dictionary of All Religions, article on Jumpers; also
Hecker.

In 1780 came another outbreak in France; but this time it was not the
Jansenists who were affected, but the strictly orthodox. A large number
of young girls between twelve and nineteen years of age, having been
brought together at the church of St. Roch, in Paris, with preaching
and ceremonies calculated to arouse hysterics, one of them fell into
convulsions. Immediately other children were similarly taken, until some
fifty or sixty were engaged in the same antics. This mania spread to
other churches and gatherings, proved very troublesome, and in some
cases led to results especially painful.

About the same period came a similar outbreak among the Protestants
of the Shetland Isles. A woman having been seized with convulsions at
church, the disease spread to others, mainly women, who fell into the
usual contortions and wild shriekings. A very effective cure proved to
be a threat to plunge the diseased into a neighbouring pond.

II. BEGINNINGS OF HELPFUL SCEPTICISM.

But near the end of the eighteenth century a fact very important for
science was established. It was found that these manifestations do not
arise in all cases from supernatural sources. In 1787 came the noted
case at Hodden Bridge, in Lancashire. A girl working in a cotton
manufactory there put a mouse into the bosom of another girl who had
a great dread of mice. The girl thus treated immediately went into
convulsions, which lasted twenty-four hours. Shortly afterward three
other girls were seized with like convulsions, a little later six more,
and then others, until, in all, twenty-four were attacked. Then came a
fact throwing a flood of light upon earlier occurrences. This epidemic,
being noised abroad, soon spread to another factory five miles distant.
The patients there suffered from strangulation, danced, tore their hair,
and dashed their heads against the walls. There was a strong belief that
it was a disease introduced in cotton, but a resident physician amused
the patients with electric shocks, and the disease died out.

In 1801 came a case of like i