Tourette's Syndrome Reoccurs in Albany

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

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In the summer of 1518, in Strasbourg, France, a woman known as Frau Troffea suddenly began dancing in the middle of a street. Her mortified husband commanded her to stop, but she didn’t, or couldn’t, and within seven days, Frau Troffea was joined by 34 more villagers. By the end of the month, 400 townspeople were frenzied with dance, unable to stop even for sleep, and some of them died from stroke, heart attack, broken ribs, or literal exhaustion.


“The Dancing Plague” remains a medical mystery. Some believe the outbreak was caused by ergotism, a hallucinogenic illness that can result from eating moldy bread. Chorea, a disorder of the nervous system that presents much like epilepsy, is another possibility.

ALL SHOOK UP: Upstate teenager Lori Brownell tells of her mysterious affliction — even capturing her Tourette’s-like tics and spasms — in videos she posted to YouTube.

But historian John Waller, author of “A Time to Dance, a Time to Die: The Extraordinary Story of the Dancing Plague of 1518,” notes that city council records at the time support the phenomenon as something deliberately undertaken — that the “plague” was psychological rather than biological.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/what_makes_them_tic_N5feofLwNdnVferxw0awIJ#ixzz1mDmz8qSw