An epidemic of laughter in Tanganyika. Five of the strangest psychic epidemics

In 1962, something strange happened in Tanganyika (now Tanzania) - the students of one of the schools began to laugh for no reason. Laughter grew into a real epidemic and spread further: to neighboring villages and cities. Until now, scientists are trying to find the cause of the outlandish phenomenon.


On January 30, 1962, three girls started laughing in the middle of a lesson at a school in the village of Kashasha, Tanganyika. The teacher sent the laughing students into the yard to restore order in the classroom.

In the yard, the girls continued to laugh for no reason. The other students watched their madness. One by one, the students started laughing. But their eyes did not smile at all. It was laughter like a curse. 50 years later, a local Muslim cleric told an American journalist that this is how the spirits of the ancestors show their strength.

Laughter spread. In the end, 95 of the 159 students at the school were infected with laughter. Along with giggling, the girls were crying incessantly. They fought back when the adults tried to restrain them. Officials closed the school and sent the affected girls home to their villages.

And the laughter spread further: to the neighboring village of Nshaba, the city of Bukoba - and reached neighboring Uganda. The first report on the phenomenon in 1963 was written by P.Kh. Philip, a local health worker, and A.M. Rankin, professor at Makerere University College. They believe the epidemic lasted six months. Other sources claim that it lasted a year, two or even more. The epidemic was "picked up" by about a thousand people, most of whom were young women and girls.


Psychology professor Robert Provine has been studying this phenomenon. He and his staff recorded over 1,000 real-life "laugh episodes" and studied the circumstances surrounding them. Provine made sure that, for the most part, people didn't laugh because something was funny. They used laughter as a kind of message to the world and group cohesion. "Laughter was social," Provine concluded. And it was contagious. "The Tanganyika laughter epidemic is a dramatic example of the contagious power of laughter," he wrote in his scientific paper.


Silvia Cardoso, an ethologist at the State University of Campinas, studies laughter in both humans and animals. Unlike most of her colleagues, she dismisses the sociogenic nature of the disease. She believes that the cause of the epidemic could be a virus. In an interview, she said: "It seems incredible to me that a purely psychological mass reaction can last so long and be so widespread."


American neurologists Hanna and Antonio Damasio suggest that abnormal laughter occurs when the structures of the main part of the brain are damaged. Based on this model, they believe that the 1962 epidemic was caused by a viral infection - probably some kind of encephalitis in the main part of the brain.

The truth about the 1962 epidemic remains in the shadow of history. Nobody wrote down the names of the three girls who were at the center of the burst of laughter. Scholars' records vary. Scientist Peter McGraw and journalist Joel Warner flew to Tanzania in search of witnesses to the epidemic. They detailed the research in a 2014 book, The Code of Humor.

Warner and McGraw visited the school where the epidemic began. They spoke with local residents about their memories of the event. They even found one woman who may have been one of the victims. She refused to talk about that incident.


Ultimately, McGraw and Warner drew conclusions from the literature, in particular from the study of Christian Hempelman. Mass psychogenic illness (which psychologists call "mass hysteria") is, in fact, a reaction to a prolonged build-up of psychological stress common to a group of people who feel powerless.

“Schools in Central Africa are particularly prone to outbreaks of mass hysteria. At the end of 2008, several girls in a Tanzanian school reacted to pressure in important exams in the following way: some fainted, while others sobbed, screamed or ran around the school,” says researcher John Waller.


Similar conclusions were reached by the first scientists who documented the Tanganyika laughter epidemic. “It is supposed to be mass hysteria in a susceptible population,” Rankin and Philip wrote in 1963. "It's probably a cultural disease."

This case may seem funny, but in fact it is a story about the destructive power of hopelessness, the inability to protest and the body's rebellion against the pressure of power as a way to complain about the surrounding reality.

When you hear the phrase "laughter epidemic", you probably imagine a group of friends having fun. But in fact, everything is much more serious here.

Laughter seems to be just the sound of joy, but laughter can also signal suffering caused by sadness or anger, and can also be associated with mania. The most famous case of a laughter epidemic occurred in Tanzania, which was then called Tanganyika in 1962, but this kind of psychological behavior occurs every day around the world, especially among populations that are prone to chronic stress. An example of a recent similar case was inexplicable nausea and dizziness among students at an English school in Lancashire last November. There are also numerous testimonies of similar incidents in places with unstable conditions - in Kosovo, Afghanistan, South Africa and so on.

This nightmare began on January 30, 1962 with the usual joke. Three students from a girls' school in Tanganyika started laughing and couldn't stop. Soon 95 schoolgirls were laughing. The scope of the epidemic turned out to be quite serious, and the school had to be closed for two months.


Laughter was replaced by sobs, accompanied by bouts of fear and, in some cases, outbursts of aggression. These symptoms quickly spread throughout the school (possibly through contact with an infected person), and could last from a few hours to 16 days.

The school was closed in March when the number of infected reached 95 of the school's 159 students. 10 days after the closure, there was a new outbreak - in one of the neighboring villages. Several girls from the closed school were from this village and apparently brought the infection home. As a result, from April to May, 217 people became victims of a mysterious epidemic in this village.

All victims were mentally healthy people. They had no fever, no convulsions, and nothing unusual was found in their blood. Theories about the effects of some kind of psychotropic fungus in the absence of other symptoms did not materialize.

Further research has failed to determine the cause of the laughter. No abnormalities were found in the body of laughing children. Suddenly and inexplicably, the fits of laughter began to get weaker, and then stopped altogether.

The mystery remains unsolved to this day.


He describes the epidemic of laughter as a massive psychogenic or sociogenic disease that can develop under conditions of increased stress. The causes of stress among schoolgirls could be different, including the uncertainty of the situation in Tanzania, which gained independence just a month earlier, and the uncertainty of the future of the school.

“On the one hand, it sounded too implausible, and on the other hand, people referred to this case in support of everything, including conflicting theories,” says Hempleman. “So I decided that I needed to figure it out myself and find out what really happened and what it tells us about the human sense of humor from a scientific point of view.”

While the case was real, it tells us almost nothing about laughter, and it irritates Hampleman when the incident in Tanzania is cited as proof that laughter can be contagious.

Psychogenic illnesses have all sorts of so-called nervous symptoms, he says, and laughter is just one of them. Despite the fact that the Taganika case is closed, such cases of mass psychogenic illness still occur among groups of people who are not able to escape from a stressful situation.

In such a situation, a person has no control over stress and cannot respond differently. It happens more often to young people than to adults, to women than to men, to workers than to managers.

“Stress needs to get some kind of bodily expression that gives the person the opportunity to say: look, I'm sick, something is happening to me, I'm not just withdrawn,” says Hempleman.

It wasn't just collective laughter, rather they experienced the same stress, people subconsciously copy a set of symptoms, and laughter is just one of them.

Templeman recalls an incident in his life when he lived in Lafayette, Indiana, when employees of the local motor vehicle registration department developed respiratory failure, to the point that the building in which they worked was repeatedly closed, and then the department was completely moved. The place was checked for the level of contamination, but nothing was found. Ultimately, local media reported this incident as a mass psychogenic illness.

“It was just a terrible work environment, no one wanted to work there, they had terrible bosses, and they just subconsciously found a way out of the situation by copying each other's behavior,” says Templeman. "It's not as crazy as it might seem."

Humpleman argues that while mass psychic epidemics are fairly common, the media rarely uses this wording.

"If you talk about a person with this disease, you still call him hysterical," he says. "You think that he does not have a real illness, that he is pissed off and thus avoids the problem."


The glue hasn't gone anywhere. Doctors, noticing recurring cases, begin to look for the best way to approach such patients. However, incidents such as the New York high school girls who developed facial tics continue to baffle the media.

Recent advances in the field of laughter research known as helotology include humor and laughter therapy, laughter meditation, and laughter yoga, in which simulated laughter becomes real, benefiting the human body. Laughter is associated with a decrease in stress hormones and an increase in endorphins, providing mental and physical recovery.

About all this, Hampleman says that this is the classic Freudian theory of humor, according to which, in his words, "a kind of magical mental pressure builds up in us, and laughter allows us to release it through something that, in a metaphorical sense, serves as a valve." He does not believe that this theory is a good explanation of how laughter and humor work. “In this case, these people were suffering and expressing their suffering through laughter,” Hempleman says, adding, “They didn’t get any better from laughing at all.”

Here's what Wikipedia says about it:


The epidemic began on January 30, 1962 in the village of Kashasha, in a women's boarding school, which was opened by a Christian mission. Three students began to laugh and cry uncontrollably, their laughter infected 95 out of 159 schoolgirls aged 12 to 18. Laughter lasted from several hours to 16 days. Laughter did not extend to teachers, but the students could not keep their attention on their studies, which is why the school was temporarily closed on March 18, 1962. On May 21, they tried to resume classes, but this could not be done (the epidemic had already got out of the village by that time).


After the school closed, students were sent home and the epidemic spread to the neighboring village of Nshamba. In April and May, 217 people experienced fits of laughter, most of them children and young adults. In June, 48 students from the Ramashenye Girls' High School near the city of Bukoba were infected with laughter.

The school where the epidemic began was sued. Uncontrollable laughter engulfed to some extent all the schools of Kashashi and the neighboring village. The epidemic ended 18 months after it began. In addition to laughter, accompanying symptoms were reported: pain, fainting, flatulence, breathing problems, rashes, bouts of crying and screaming. In total, 14 schools were closed, more than 1,000 people were affected by the epidemic.

One of the possible causes of the epidemic of laughter is a combination of poor conditions for schoolgirls (uncomfortable chairs, a hostel without windows and the severity of teachers) and the inability to protest; laughter was one of the harmless ways to complain about reality.

It is worth remembering a few more strange epidemics.

Among the inhabitants of a number of villages in Sudan, an epidemic of hysterical laughter began, caused by the use of bakery products from experimental wheat. Following an attack of unreasonable laughter, the sick people faint.

"People have consumed this unsuitable for cooking wheat, and it seems to have caused them hallucinations, tantrums, unreasonable laughter, fever and fainting," the Sudanese Ministry of Health said in a statement.

In July 1518, a strange dancing epidemic attacked the city of Strasbourg (France). It started with a woman named Frau Trofea who started dancing in the streets for no reason and without music. Within a week, 34 other people had joined her. And by August there were 400 strange people.

Even musicians were involved in such dances, so that people would at least dance to the music, and it would not all look so creepy. But then it was even worse: all these "dancers" did not stop until their legs were bleeding. People started dying of heart attacks.

All who had symptoms of this epidemic were moved to the mountains, where they prayed for their lives. In the end, most survived. It has long been assumed that the dancing epidemic was related to a curse sent by the ministers of St. Vitus Cathedral, but modern historians tend to attribute the disease to mass hysteria.

Another unusual epidemic was in Tanzania.

The disease looks like this: children aged 5 - 15 years old can fall head first with or without convulsions. This usually happens while eating. One researcher has even observed that similar behavior is observed in children when eating unfamiliar foods such as chocolate.

"Nodding disease" according to some studies affects 3,000 children. Doctors cannot yet understand the cause and choose a treatment for this disease.

In 2013, an epidemic of involuntary twitching appeared in a high school in the suburb of Leroy, which is 80 km east of Buffalo, New York, USA. It started when a cheerleader named Katie Krautwurst woke up and started twitching.

Then a strange epidemic spread to her best friend, and then to other students, mostly girls, in the small school #600. As the virus progressed, some students were even shown on national television, where they talked about their symptoms on the air.

At first it was believed that people were affected by chemical poisoning. However, it later turned out to be a Transformation disorder, in which a small group of people are unconsciously able to imitate the behavior of their peers.

PS: I remember what schoolchildren "sick" in the early 80s in the USSR:

One kid was transferred from another school and he "brought" the fashion to spit raw potatoes or apples through a straw. Before that, we used a chewed blotter.

And then one son of a fisherman figured out how to "shoot" at the lessons with pieces of thin rubber band. And then it began! You take up to a centimeter of fishing gum, and wind one turn on the brass rod of a fountain pen .. You pull it and release it while aiming at your neighbor ..

But the fashion quickly passed and was replaced by throwing rubber balls from rubber glue, cauterizing the ceiling with stitches, shooting with wire breaks, throwing a rag with a ruler, shooting an apple using homemade pneumatics from a fountain pen rod, etc.

Well, "diseases" also spread throughout the school instantly. If you miss the crushed lead, then the temperature will rise and you don’t have to go to school!))

We offer, to those who have not yet ..., subscribe to our magazine, let's watch this performance of the theater of the absurd together ...)))

(now Tanzania) .

The epidemic began on January 30, 1962 in the village of Kashasha, in the women's boarding school, which was discovered by the Christian mission. Three students began to laugh and cry uncontrollably, their laughter infected 95 out of 159 schoolgirls aged 12 to 18. Laughter lasted from several hours to 16 days. Laughter did not extend to teachers, but the students could not keep their attention on their studies, which is why the school was temporarily closed on March 18, 1962. On May 21, they tried to resume classes, but this was not possible (the epidemic had already got out of the village by that time).

After the school closed, students were sent home and the epidemic spread to the nearby village of Nshamba. In April and May, 217 people experienced fits of laughter, most of them children and young adults. In June, 48 students from the Ramashenye Girls' High School near the city were infected with laughter. Bukoba.

The school where the epidemic began was sued. Uncontrollable laughter engulfed to some extent all the schools of Kashashi and the neighboring village. The epidemic ended 18 months after it began. In addition to laughter, accompanying symptoms were reported: pain, fainting , flatulence, breathing problems, rashes, bouts of crying and screaming. In total, 14 schools were closed, more than 1,000 people were affected by the epidemic.

One of the possible causes of the epidemic of laughter is a combination of poor conditions for schoolgirls (uncomfortable chairs, hostel without windows and the severity of teachers) and the inability to protest; laughter was one of the harmless ways to complain about reality.

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An excerpt characterizing the Epidemic of Laughter in Tanganyika

- Well, well, well! - said the old count, - everything is getting excited. All Bonaparte turned everyone's head; everyone thinks how he got from lieutenant to emperor. Well, God forbid,' he added, not noticing the guest's mocking smile.
The big ones started talking about Bonaparte. Julie, daughter of Karagina, turned to the young Rostov:
- What a pity that you were not at the Arkharovs on Thursday. I was bored without you,” she said, smiling gently at him.
The flattered young man with the coquettish smile of youth moved closer to her and entered into a separate conversation with the smiling Julie, not at all noticing that this involuntary smile of his with a knife of jealousy cut the heart of Sonya, who was blushing and pretending to smile. In the middle of the conversation, he looked back at her. Sonya looked at him passionately and vexedly, and, barely able to keep the tears in her eyes and a feigned smile on her lips, got up and left the room. All of Nikolai's animation was gone. He waited for the first break in the conversation and, with a distressed face, went out of the room to look for Sonya.
- How the secrets of all this youth are sewn with white thread! - said Anna Mikhailovna, pointing to the exit of Nikolai. - Cousinage dangereux voisinage, [Disaster business - cousins,] - she added.
“Yes,” said the countess, after the ray of sunshine that had entered the living room with this young generation had disappeared, and as if answering a question that no one asked her, but which constantly occupied her. - How much suffering, how much anxiety endured in order to now rejoice in them! And now, really, more fear than joy. Everything is afraid, everything is afraid! It is the age at which there are so many dangers for both girls and boys.
“It all depends on upbringing,” said the guest.
“Yes, you are right,” continued the Countess. “Until now, thank God, I have been a friend of my children and enjoy their full confidence,” the countess said, repeating the error of many parents who believe that their children have no secrets from them. - I know that I will always be the first confidente [attorney] of my daughters, and that Nikolenka, in her ardent character, if she is naughty (the boy cannot do without it), then everything is not like these St. Petersburg gentlemen.
“Yes, nice, nice guys,” the count confirmed, always resolving questions that were confusing for him by finding everything glorious. - Look, I wanted to be a hussars! Yes, that's what you want, ma chere!
“What a lovely creature your little one is,” said the guest. - Gunpowder!
“Yes, gunpowder,” said the count. - She went to me! And what a voice: even though my daughter, but I'll tell the truth, there will be a singer, Salomoni is different. We took an Italian to teach her.
- Is not it too early? They say it is harmful for the voice to study at this time.
- Oh, no, how early! the count said. - How did our mothers get married at twelve thirteen?
“She is in love with Boris even now!” What? said the countess, smiling softly, looking at Boris's mother, and, apparently answering the thought that always occupied her, she continued. - Well, you see, if I held her strictly, I forbid her ... God knows what they would do on the sly (the countess understood: they would kiss), and now I know her every word. She herself will come running in the evening and tell me everything. Maybe I spoil her; but, really, it seems to be better. I kept my elder strictly.
“Yes, I was brought up in a completely different way,” said the eldest, beautiful Countess Vera, smiling.
But a smile did not adorn Vera's face, as is usually the case; on the contrary, her face became unnatural and therefore unpleasant.
The eldest, Vera, was good, she was not stupid, she studied well, she was well brought up, her voice was pleasant, what she said was fair and appropriate; but, strange to say, everyone, both the guest and the countess, looked back at her, as if surprised why she had said this, and felt awkward.
“They are always wise with older children, they want to do something extraordinary,” said the guest.

Studied, and not all drugs invented.

Our world is sometimes very strange, and diseases in it are no exception.

Below is a list of the strangest recorded epidemics in history.


Sleeping sickness

1915-1926


Around that time there was a deadly Spanish flu (1918-1920) and another rampant disease, which many have forgotten. This disease was officially named lethargic encephalitis, at its peak, killing about 1 million people while millions of other people were paralyzed.

Even though she was named "sleeping sickness", however, the affliction had many symptoms, including sore throat and convulsions. In the end, the infected person fell into a coma or died: the mortality rate for lethargic encephalitis reached 40%.

The terrible epidemic is over in 1926, and it is still not clear what caused it, and how it was necessary to treat this "sleeping sickness".

Dance Epidemic


In July 1518 a strange dancing epidemic has attacked the city Strasbourg(France). It started with a woman named Frau trophy(Troffea), who started dancing in the streets for no reason, and without music. In a week 34 other people joined her. And by August there were strange people 400.

Even musicians, so that people would at least dance to the music, and it would all not look so creepy. But then it was even worse: all these "dancers" did not stop until their legs were bleeding. people started die from heart attacks.

Anyone who had symptoms of this epidemic, moved to the mountains where they prayed for their lives. In the end, most survived. For a long time it was assumed that the dance epidemic was associated with a curse sent by the ministers of St. Vitus Cathedral, but modern historians tend to attribute the disease to mass hysteria.

Insect bite or hysteria?


AT 1962 A woman working in a textile factory in the southern United States suddenly developed rash and fever. She claimed to have been bitten june beetle(June Khrushchev).

Within a few days dozens other people in the same plant also showed similar symptoms, resulting in many workers being hospitalized, even if they were not bitten. The plant was evacuated, but only two such beetles were found there.

Also on site was not found no hazardous chemicals that could lead to such illness. It was later determined that it was stress-induced mass hysteria.

strange disease


But the disease is an epidemic, which cannot be attributed to hysteria, but its cause is still unknown. There is controversy as to whether this disease even occurs. She is named "Mogellon's disease" biologist from the University of Massachusetts, Boston, USA, Mary Leito.

The epidemic strikes, first of all, white women middle-aged, but the son of Mary Leito also complained about her, who began to study this ailment. Since tens of thousands of people from all over the world claimed to be affected by the "Mogellon disease", including singer Joni Mitchell.

Symptoms of the strange disease range from itching or burning and tiny fibers on the skin to memory loss.

However, research indicates that most of these fibers are conventional bandage cotton. Also, no viruses or any diseases associated with environmental pollution were found among the patients' habitat. Perhaps this is some type of mental illness.

But there are many people who believe that "Mogellon's disease" is a physical condition, and doctors still trying to understand essence of the epidemic.

An epidemic of laughter


January 30 1962 in the United Republic of Tanzania, three girls started laughing at a joke. This laughter spread in a few minutes throughout the school affecting 60% of students and then beyond the school.

It was reported that many residents of the city laughed continuously during a year, while laughter was accompanied by tears, fainting, and sometimes the appearance of a rash on the body. were even forced close several schools to stop this epidemic.

This epidemic, which to this day remains the only one of its kind, is considered a living example mental epidemic.

Epidemic in Africa


This unusual epidemic is currently spreading on children in Africa. An unusual ailment has also already appeared in Tanzania.

The disease looks like this: children aged 5 - 15 years can fall head first with or without seizures. This usually happens while eating. One researcher even noticed that similar behavior of children is observed when eating unfamiliar food, like chocolate.

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