When Fads Go Amok

Dangerous and fatal fads aren't uncommon among pubescent girls. As the New York Times pointed out in a major story 10 years ago, female puberty can often be pretty rough. In 1692, to cite one well-known example, a group of pubescent girls from Salem, Massachusetts, began suffering fits, contortions and uncontrolled screaming. A doctor bought in by the girls' families quickly decided that the problems was witchcraft, which certain bad actors were using to infect the houses, fields, forests and even the ships at sea. When one sea captain found a tub of rancid butter in the hold, he blamed that on witchcraft too. In those days, justice was swift. Nineteen people were promptly hanged and 150 more imprisioned. But Yankees had too much common sense to stay nutty for long. Residens quickly began to notice that even people with no belief in superstgitutions like witchcraft were using nevertheless using the accusation to redress old greviences. Within nine months the hysteria was essentially gone. Now we only hear about Salem 1692 when someone wants to point out, with good reason, I might add, just how fast a sober and reasonable society can essentially go nuts. Here's another pubescent female fad, this time though this time it's probably one you never heard of. In the 20th century, the historical team of Will and Ariel Durant wrote a book on Greek civilzation which mentioned in passing an old Plutarch story about an epidemic of suicide among young women in the Greek seaside town of Miletus in 277 BC. Girls were going out and hanging themselves in large numbers. Parents were aghast and astonished that such a thing could be happening at all. Some of them essentially hired guards to keep their daughters from running amok. No one really knew what to do until the city fathers, in a classic fit of inspiration, came up with the idea of mandating that all suicides be carried naked through the marketplace on their way to the burial grounds. This not only worked. It stopped the suicides overnight. Apparently, the desire to kill yourself wasn't as strong as the fear of having total strangers see you naked in the town square. The probelms today, of course, are much different. Many transsexuals today would give their left foot to be seen naked, in the marketplace, or anywhere else.