Re: NY Post What Makes Them Tic???

[Guest guest]

The following Sunday, New York Post article "What Makes Them Tic" is a full two page spread on the unfolding events in Le Roy, New York. What follows are just the opening paragraphs .... to read entire article:

http://tinyurl.com/82csa4s

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17 teen girls hit in twitching epidemic -- but doctors say it’s all in their heads

By MAUREEN CALLAHAN

Last Updated: 4:37 AM, February 12, 2012

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 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.

“These people were not just trembling, shaking or convulsing,†Waller has said. “Although they were entranced, their arms and legs were moving as if they were purposefully dancing.â€

This past December, Lori Brownell posted her first video to YouTube. She titled it “Twitching/passing out-1st video!†Brownell, who is 16, has shoulder-length auburn hair and almond eyes rimmed in kohl eyeliner. On camera, Brownell details her recent history of passing out at homecoming, trouble sleeping, seizures, and the sudden, strange onset of Tourette’s-like twitching and vocal tics, which include chimp-like breathing sounds.