The Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic of 1962 was an outbreak of mass psychogenic illness (MPI) in the vicinity of the village of Kashasha on the western coast of Lake Victoria in the modern nation of Tanzania. Scott Williams Sign in to disable ALL ads. (Photo: CC Tanzania). This looks like the good kind of laughter. Some say the claims of what happened in Tanganyika are wildly exaggerated and has developed into an urban legend over the years. By July two further schools had been shut down as investigations continued into the cause of the happiness hysteria. The laughter outbursts lasted from minutes to a few hours and reoccurred up to four times (Provine: “Laughter, a scientific investigation”). Hempelmann says that while mass psychogenic illness is fairly common, it’s often not reported under that name. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Your email address will not be published. Scott Williams The stress factors here among the schoolgirls may have included the unfamiliar expectations imposed in the British-run schools and the uncertainties created by Tanganyika’s independence, achieved barely a month before the incident. Listen to the audio pronunciation of Tanzania laughter epidemic on pronouncekiwi. Christian Hempelmann of Texas A&M University, who has done research on the incident, describes the laughter epidemic as a case of mass psychogenic or sociogenic illness, a malady that has the capacity to strike in a variety of high-stress settings. Much less serious than the Dancing Plague was the Tanganyika laughter epidemic of 1962. Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic ADDPMP209 Outbreak of mass hysteria – or mass psychogenic illness (MPI) – rumored to have occurred in 1962 near the village of Kashasha on the western coast of Lake Victoria in the modern nation of Tanzania (formerly Tanganyika) near the border with Uganda. 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The first three victims were teenage girls though the laughing quickly spread to the rest of the school with 95 of the nearly 200 … Children passing saw the girls laughing and although unaware of what had provoked such a joyous outburst among the girls, also started laughing. School rooms of children would begin laughing without explanation. Every weekday we compile our most wondrous stories and deliver them straight to you. Today what took place in Kashasha and Nshamba is described in scientific journals as the “Tanganyika (Tanzania) Laugh Epidemic”. It’s not always this way. There is no doubt that the event was remarkable. For centuries-old bars, a pandemic is nothing new. This laughing epidemic spread to other schools and lasted between 6 and 18 months. Slowly, it spread beyond their school and region and into other at-risk populations. Tanzania, known more for its wildlife than its history of laughter epidemics. The laughter epidemic started on January 30, 1962 at an all-girls boarding school near the village of Kashasha in modern day Tanzania, Africa. We have all experienced at some point in our lives a mini version of the Tanganyika Laugh Epidemic where we have commenced uncontrollable laughter. Instead of medicine, laughter became an epidemic. “If you are referring to somebody as suffering from this, you are in a way still calling them hysterical,” he says. The 1962 outbreak began in a girls’ school and then spread to other communities, with uncontrollable laughter affecting perhaps 1,000 people, lasting several months, and causing the temporary closure of 14 schools. Discomfort? On January 30, 1962, at a mission-run boarding school at Kashasha village in Tanzania, three girls started showing symptoms that were the beginning of a critical outbreak: laughing a crying fits, restlessness, and paranoia. October 22, 2020, 4:36 pm, by The Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic remains the only one of its kind on record. This incident was recorded in Central African Journal of Medicine titled, ‘An Epidemic of Laughing in the Bukoba District of Tanganyika’ in 1963. Workers at the local DMV were exhibiting respiratory distress to the point that the building was repeatedly shut down and eventually relocated. Such a person is more commonly young than old, female than male, and employee rather than a supervisor. 65 Views. When the first episode if what would be called the Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic occurred on January 30, 1962 at boarding school in Kashasha, Tanganyika (now Tanzania), no one suspected that what they were seeing would eventually affect over one thousand people. Most cases of mass psychogenic illness begin with a single individual—in this case, one schoolgirl likely fell into a fit of anxiety-induced laughter, setting in motion a chain effect, until the girls around her were also engulfed in desperate laughter. Discomfort? The most famous example of a laughter epidemic happened in 1962 in Tanzania (Tanganyika at that time). (Photo: Are Yeltsin and Clinton laughing out of mirth? It was called Tanganyika back then. Follow us on social media to add even more wonder to your day. Could it be both? Sufferers’ symptoms included recurring attacks of laughing and crying that lasted from a few hours up to 16 days. Began as an innocent chuckle between two girls in a boarding school in the village of Kashasha How it started How long did it last The laughing epidemic lasted from six months to “It’s not as crazy as one would think.”. 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