The term psychic contagion is often thought of as merely figurative. It is, however, quite literal. Many minds are influenced by what they see happening round them and induced to imitate the activities of others. The term psychic contagion is so thoroughly descriptive of what happens that it deserves the place that it has secured.

Everywhere and at all times we find historical traces of psychic contagion compelling people to perform in crowds or groups the most curious and inexplicable and sometimes the most horrible things. Even in the old myths before the times of the Trojan War, we have the story of hysteria spreading among the daughters of King Proteus, so that the famous old physician, Pelampus, had to administer white hellebore in goat's milk in order to relieve them. It is probable that this rather heroic remedy with its definite effect upon the bowels produced such a revulsion of feeling as to cure the hysteria. Anyone who has read the awful tragedy that Euripides has written in the Bacchae will have had brought home to him a typical example of psychic contagion. The queen mother in the midst of one of the Bacchic orgies kills her own son in the frenzy that has come from the religious excitement exaggerated by the association of a number of women in the religious rites of the god Bacchus. It is well understood that this was not a case of drunkenness, but of psychic intoxication.

Phrygian Bacchantes are described as overcome from time to time by paroxysms of curious uncontrollable automatic movements with or without disturbance of consciousness. This represents the earliest form of what came to be known afterwards as St. Vitus Dance when it spread among a number of people. Such manifestations were not at all uncommon in the East in the earlier days and they have continued during all history. In Hindustan epidemics of automatic movements, evidently choreic in character, have been known for many centuries under the name of lapax. Outbreaks of this kind were common in the Middle Ages and Paracelsus has described them as happening early in the sixteenth century. At any time the occurrence of an hysterical seizure in a crowded hall, and especially in a schoolroom, will lead to other hysterical manifestations. A case of chorea will induce imitative movements in susceptible bystanders that may be quite uncontrollable. Tics of various kinds are readily picked up by children and special care must be exercised to prevent their spread. In general the state of mind is extremely important in all these conditions and they can be influenced favorably only through the mind.

Contagions Trifles.—Perhaps the extent to which psychic contagion influences us can be seen better in little things than anywhere else. Everyone knows how contagious yawning is. Again and again observations have been made while actors were yawning upon the stage. Nearly everyone in the theater begins to yawn in a few minutes and, in spite of the most determined {689} efforts, every now and then even the most serious-minded elderly gentleman in the audience finds himself unconsciously joining in. It seems foolish and to an onlooker appears almost prearranged. It is only necessary, however, to yawn a few times in a street car, especially at night, to have many imitators. Nearly the same thing is true of all respiratory phenomena. Sighing, for instance, is quite contagious. Coughing is often as much the result of imitation as anything else. At certain pauses in church services a preliminary cough is heard and then some scattering coughs here and there, like the musketry of scouts, and then a whole battery of coughs is let off, especially if it is in the winter time, because nearly everybody within hearing is tempted to cough. To talk about yawning or coughing or sighing before some people is almost sure to produce a tendency to these manifestations. These apparently trivial happenings help to explain many phenomena of human imitation in more serious things.

Most of the phenomena associated with expression are liable to be initiated as the result of imitation. Laughing, for instance, is particularly contagious among young folks and is especially likely to be insuppressible when they wish to be particularly solemn. At religious services it takes but little to make people laugh and giggle, no matter how much they may wish to be dignified and reverential. A few giggling girls will sometimes disturb a serious service. Extremes are particularly prone to meet in this matter and the sublime easily becomes the ridiculous. A titter will set off even the best intentioned of young folks in spite of resolutions to the contrary. Crying has something of the same contagious nature, though it is not quite so strong, but among women tears are particularly likely to evoke tears. The epidemic of curious manifestations of expression, usually of an hysterical nature, that we know by tradition to have spread in communities in the Middle Ages and much later, are only typical examples of this tendency for modes of expression to be contagious to an exaggerated degree.

Expectoration is largely dependent on imitation, sometimes conscious, of course, but often quite unconscious. In the recent crusade organized to prevent the spread of tuberculosis the question of expectoration as a diffusing agent of the bacilli has given a new importance to observations on this subject. It is recognized that we have "a spitting sex" and that men spit from force of habit, boys imitate them, while women and girls almost never spit. There is no reason in the world why when men and women are engaged in the same occupations there should be any difference in this regard between them, yet employers know how hard it is to keep corners and by-places in the rooms where men work free from expectoration, while no such difficulty is found where women work. We have a spitting sex because of psychic contagion, and in spite of the fact that there are serious dangers connected with the habit. What is true of spitting may also be true of other habits relating to the respiratory passages. Hawking and blowing the nose more frequently than is needed are spread by psychic contagion and certain habits in these matters that are injurious to the respiratory apparatus often require considerable effort to break.

Fads and Health.—Enlightened as we think ourselves, we have many more examples of psychic contagion in the present than we would perhaps care to admit, unless the facts were called to our special attention. {690} At a particular period in the modern time it becomes the fad to do things in a special way. We write alike, we build our houses after a common type. We take our recreation in a particular fashion. Bicycling comes in and goes out; roller skating attacks nearly every one of the young folks and then is abandoned. There are fashions in everything and fashions, after all, are recurring instances of psychic contagion. The mental influence spreads from one to another. It may be that a particular fashion, as in houses or in clothes, is especially ugly. That makes no difference. After a time taste revolts against it, but in the meantime the psychic contagion is enough to overturn the canons of taste. There are fashions in literature, or at least what is called literature. The nature novel comes and goes, then the novel of adventure has its place, then the detective novel, after a time the little-country prince or princess and their romance comes into fashion. After a time we realize that these are passing fancies, but in the meantime they have influenced many people.

Some of these fashions bring conditions that are deleterious to health. The moving-picture show in places that almost never have a stime of sunlight in them and are, in their way, quite as bad, especially for respiratory troubles, as the dust-laden atmosphere of the roller-skating rink, become the fad of the moment in spite of knowledge or ignorance of hygiene. Just now we are in the midst of a fad for fresh air, that, unfortunately, goes and comes with the centuries and we have no guarantee that people will not learn again to live in closely sealed houses. High heels come and go, as do corsets of various kinds, more or less injurious, in spite of the admonition of the physician. In fact, one of the most interesting studies in psychic contagion is the history of the fashions. A particular fashion, especially in its exaggerated forms, will probably look well on about one-fifth of the women at a given time. About four-fifths of them, however, adopt it in spite of the fact that on three-fifths it emphasizes certain qualities that it would be well to keep in the background. It is woman's principal desire to please, yet this is completely perverted by the psychic epidemic of fashion which causes people to follow after others quite as much as did the medieval people in various fads that attracted attention and have come down to us.

Our enlightenment, at least in as far as that word means general diffusion of the ability to read, has rather added to the power of psychic contagion. People accept ideas from others almost as unconsciously as they catch disease from those suffering from it. The psychology of advertising shows how easy it is to make people accept things just by insisting on them and by frequent repetitions of statements. The psychology of the proprietary medicine business in modern times is about as typical an example of psychic contagion induced deliberately as one could well imagine. Those who stop to reason do not fall victims. Most people, however, do not stop to reason. They have not the mental resistive vitality to render them immune to the influence of certain irrationalities and so literally hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on perfectly useless, oftentimes harmful drugs, which people had become persuaded through the psychic contagium of printer's ink were sure to do them good. The psychology of the mob has been studied somewhat in recent years and it shows how clear it is that men follow after one another in doing foolish things even more than in doing wise ones. Psychic contagion is a prominent factor in life, it always has been, is now, and evidently always {691} will be, and must be reckoned with by anyone who wishes to recognize the principles that underlie psychotherapy.

Suicide Contagions.—It is with regard to much more serious things than fashions, however, that psychic contagion is most manifest. For instance, there is no doubt that suicide is frequently the result of such psychic influence. Seldom does it happen that a very queer suicide is reported without there being certain imitations of it more or less complete in various parts of the country afterwards. There is no doubt that the reporting of suicides has a serious effect in this matter. Perhaps the most striking example of this that we have ever had in America was the well-known suicidal epidemic at Emporia, Kansas, which reached its height just about the middle of June, 1901. Two or three well-known people in town committed suicide at the end of May and the beginning of June. A veritable epidemic of suicide broke out as a consequence. Nothing seemed to stop it and the authorities were much disturbed. Finally it was agreed that the most potent influence in bringing about the imitation of the epidemic was the publication of the details of the suicides in the papers. The Mayor of the city, after consulting with the Board of Health, decided to issue the following proclamation:

I have consulted the Board of Health, and if the Emporia papers do not comply with my request I shall have a right to stop, and I will stop summarily, the publication of these suicide details, under the law providing for the suppression of epidemics. There is clearly an epidemic in this city, and although it is mental, it is none the less deadly. Its contagion may be clearly shown to come from what is known in medicine as the psychic suggestion found in the publication of the details of suicides. If the paper on which the local Journals are printed had been kept in a place infected with smallpox, I could demand that the Journals stop using that paper, or stop publication. If they spread another contagion—the contagious suggestion of suicide—I believe the liberty of the press is not to be considered before the public welfare, and that the courts would sustain me in using force to prevent the publication of newspapers containing matter clearly deleterious to the public health.

Murder.—In almost the same way murders prove contagious. Especially is this true of murder and suicide together. These occur notably in groups. A man who is downhearted and for whom the future looks blank, will, out of a sense of pity for those who are dependent on him, murder them and himself; then the brutal story is reported and another tottering intellect gives way and a similar story has to be told within a few days. A mother who is melancholic about her health and includes her children in her gloomy outlook makes away with them and herself. Within a few days a similar story is reported because of the influence of psychic contagion. Very often there are distinct imitations of the methods employed in the first case. Often, however, it is only the idea itself that has proved contagious. There is no doubt that this suggestion brings about subsequent cases when otherwise such an awful thought might not occur. The connection is too clear for us to doubt the reality of it or to think that it is mere coincidence. As in Emporia, doubtless the suppression of the description of such events would have a beneficial effect. There are many disequilibrated minds, apparently just tottering on the verge of an insane act of this kind, that are pushed over by the suggestion furnished by the details of another story.{692}

Place of Psychic Contagion.—The physician who would treat nervous patients successfully and use psychotherapeutics to advantage must recognize the place that psychic contagion has in influencing the generality of mankind. We know that direct suggestions are profoundly influential. It must be constantly kept in mind, however, that indirect suggestion, suggestion that does not come by any formal method, but that is represented by the examples of those around, also has great weight.

Favorable Influence.—Fortunately it is not alone for evil that psychic contagion is manifest. People in a crowd stand fatigue better than when alone. Soldiers marching in step do not notice their tiredness to such a degree and even forget their sore feet. People suffering from hunger, so long as there is a good spirit among them, will help each other to bear it. The accidents in coal mines in recent years in which men have been imprisoned for considerable periods have shown that in groups they stand the hardships of confinement and of lack of food and water better than they do when alone, men live longer, they do not suffer so much or at least their suffering is not so insistent, and they bear up better.

This has been particularly noticed in the cures at various watering places. The very air of the place takes on a favorable suggestion that is helpful to patients. The routine, the hopefulness of those who are completing the cure, the stories of improvement, the evident betterment, all these things combine to give a psychic contagion of health. Health is, in this sense, quite as contagious as disease. This must be taken advantage of just as far as possible for the advantage of patients. On the other hand, ideas are contagious for ill and patients may derive from their environment notions that prove auto-suggestive and against which it is extremely difficult to work. Ideas derived from the general feelings of those around, without any direct suggestion, may become obsessions. The physician, therefore, must be ready to secure prophylaxis against psychic contagion and then by counter-suggestion relieve the patient, who has become afflicted by it, of the resulting disturbance of mind. It must not be forgotten that, instead of being less susceptible as education and civilization progress, people really become more susceptible.

Psychology of the Mob.—The most interesting instance of psychic contagion is the tendency just hinted at for crowds to run away with the sober judgment of serious sensible people that happen to be among them and do things that may be extremely regrettable. A mob always follows the suggestions of the worst elements in it unless perchance there is some extremely strong character who asserts himself and imposes his views on the rest. The tendencies to panic, to cowardly flight, sometimes to destructiveness, that come over crowds represent the power of psychic contagion to override reason. An alarm of fire will, if a few persons lose their heads, lead to the most serious consequences. Persons trample over one another, pull and maul one another, sometimes even pulling out hair or pulling off ears in their insane efforts to escape what is often an imaginary danger, though a few moments before they were rational beings and they will be quite reasonable a short time after. It is possible, however, to overcome even the worst tendencies in human nature by the suggestive power of discipline. Fire drills in schools enable children to get out in a few minutes without confusion when without them the most serious results could be looked for. Discipline and training, {693} following commands and observing tactics, helps an army almost more than the individual courage of soldiers. The suggestive influence of the thought that now is the time to do something that has often been done before at the word of command is enough to enable the soldier to control his panicky feelings. The difference between the trained soldier and the raw recruit is great, but it consists only in this mental discipline and self-control.

Prevention.—Evidently, then, in the many circumstances in life in which psychic contagion manifests itself it is perfectly possible to overcome its influence by such discipline and mental training as gives the individual control over himself. In children corporal punishment is often not effective in breaking up habits and tendencies and the motive of fear often lessens self-control and makes conditions worse. In older people the fear of punishment is likely to be forgotten, whereas the suggestion of discipline will assert itself powerfully. Psychic contagion can be neutralized by psychotherapy, but its force in life must be recognized and its unfavorable influence guarded against. While it concerns mainly the less serious things of life, it may affect the most serious and imitation leads even to such serious criminal acts as suicide and murder. The modes of psychic contagion, then, must be constantly under surveillance.

With this before us it is extremely interesting to realize how unfavorably suggestive for human health and happiness are our newspapers. They are constantly suggesting disease and suicide and murder and sex crimes and crimes against property, by giving all the details available with regard to these subjects. Such news can do no good, only excites morbid curiosity which requires still further satisfaction in the same line, and keeps thoughts with regard to these things constantly before the mind. We have had many burglaries and holdups and stealings of various kinds as a consequence of boys and even girls seeing the pictures of crimes in the moving-picture show. The saturation of mind with disease and crime produced by daily reading of unsavory and sensational newspaper accounts is sure to produce evil effects. There seems to be consolation for some people in reading of the crimes and punishments of others because they feel that, bad as is their own state, there are others who are worse. This schadenfreude, "harm-joy" as the Germans call it, is not satisfying to think of for human nature and it has an inevitable reaction through the unfavorable suggestion of these crimes.

I have found over and over again that the prohibition of reading the newspapers for a time did many nervous people much good. This is particularly true for sufferers from such forms of psychasthenia as bring down on them dreads and premonitions of evil in fears for the development of disease and in general a sense of instability with regard to the future, lest dreadful things should happen to them. At first patients object strenuously and seem to be deprived of a great satisfaction. After a time, however, they are invariably persuaded of the fact that the absence of mental contact with human misfortune, in this morbid way, is doing them good and that their dreads and premonitory feelings of evil drop from them.{694}