A historical event that you cannot believe is real: Tanganyika laughter epidemic

In 1962, there was an event in Tanganyika (now known as Tanzania) that you cannot believe is real.

The epidemic begins on January 30, 1962 in a boarding school, where only girls stay, in Kashasha, Tanganyika.

The laughter, which started as a result of a joke among the students, spreads randomly throughout the boarding school. In the boarding school, 95 out of 159 students aged between 12 and 18 affect the laughing outbreak. According to the determinations, the effect of the epidemic varied from person to person. It took a few hours for some people and easy for the language but 16 days for others.

The teachers were not affected by this epidemic, but they could not prevent the event. The teachers, who stated that the students could not concentrate on their lessons, asked for the school to be closed on 18 March 1962 and the school was closed at that time.

The school was closed, but the laughter epidemic still continued. In April and May, 217 people of school age and young adults were affected by the epidemic in Laganyika’s Nshamba village.

The school in Kashasha was reopened on May 21. Thanks to the school, which remained open from May to June, the epidemic spread to the relatives of Bukoba, thus 48 people were affected by the epidemic.

The authorities then took over and sued the school where the outbreak broke out

Students at the school were distributed to schools in the surrounding villages. The girls who went to the schools in the neighboring villages had a similar effect there, but the epidemic ended completely 6-8 months after it started.

14 schools in total have been closed due to this issue in Tanganyika. About 1000 people were also affected. Regardless of what the laughter epidemic is called, laughing laughs is not a good thing. As a result of this incident, many young people in that region suffered pain, and had fainting and redness attacks.

So how did such an event occur?

The reason for this situation, according to experts, is social hysteria. Social hysteria often occurs in communities that are not very strong, and it is a last resort for people with low status. One way to express that something is wrong.

Charles F. Hempelmann from Purdue University stated that the Tanganyika laughing outbreak was caused by “stress”. In 1962, Tanganyika gained its independence. For this reason, students; They stated that teachers and families had higher expectations than themselves and experienced extreme stress. The students found themselves such a way of escape and signed one of the most interesting events in history.

It is not known whether we can accept this event in major epidemics in history.

Source: wikipedia.org