and showed how her sisters were drawn into it, "by love of mischief, imitation, vanity, and necessity of going on after they had begun." In the case of "the afflicted girls" of New England there is positive evidence that some were consciously and intentionally performing a part.
If those who were not intentional deceivers believed that they were afflicted by the accused, their evidence and actions become simple. If the accused moved her head, they would move theirs automatically. Hypnotic performances, now well known, furnish a perfect analogy. Every hypnotizer has to be constantly on his guard lest all with whom he is experimenting should do whatever is done by one. That this is an adequate explanation appears from the fact that in those parts of the world where witchcraft is still believed in, and where a scientific knowledge of epidemic hysteria and of hypnotism does not exist, such attacks are believed to be produced by witchcraft.
The "London Medical Record" has recently published an article quoted from an Italian medical journal, giving an account of an epidemic of hysteria among the peasants of Albania. The priests had tried to exorcise the evil spirits, but without success. Fourteen girls under twenty years of age, one boy of eleven, a woman of fifty, and a robust peasant of nineteen were carefully studied. The muscles of the face and neck became rigid, and afterward those of the limbs. The woman went through the most violent contortions and muscular motions, beating her chest with her hands and then falling motionless. This was sometimes repeated again and again. She said that during the attacks she "saw the figure of the woman who bewitched her." The origin and history of the case are here given in brief:
