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Mass Hysteria

  • 09-12-2006 5:27pm
    #1
    aphex™
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,338 ✭✭✭


    I've just found a news article on mass hysteria from yesterday here.

    Extract:
    A specialist science college was evacuated yesterday after a film on human biology apparently sparked mass hysteria.

    More than 30 pupils, aged from 11 to 13, as well as a teaching assistant were taken to hospital after three children initially told teachers that they were feeling unwell..........................

    Just wondering if there are any good examples of this happening in Ireland? Would the moving statues thing count or is that something a bit different (no illness i know)?


Comments

  • #2
    JuliusCaesar
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,885 ✭✭✭JuliusCaesar


    Moving statues, Anthrax scare (I live near the Bomb Squad base, and they were in and out like a fiddlers elbow for a couple of weeks)..........there must be more
    Tulipmania in Holland, the South Sea Bubble....
    Charles McKay wrote a book called "Extraordinary Popular Delusions & the Madness of Crowds" in 1841 which seems apposite.


  • #3
    aphex™
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,338 ✭✭✭aphex™


    Will definitely check out that book.

    So much for the 'wisdom of crowds', eh? I know that doesn't have any relation to individuals in a crowd, though.

    I've always been a bit wary of believing what people tell me when i arrive on a scene where the pertinent question is "what happened here?". Skepticism comes in handy from time to time.


  • #4
    JuliusCaesar
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,885 ✭✭✭JuliusCaesar


    I suppose the wisdom of the individual gets overtaken by the madness of crowds............now what was that classical psychology experiment again? :D


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