Tanganyika laughter epidemic

[4][3] The epidemic spread to Nshamba of the Muleba District, a village 55 miles west of Bukoba, where several of the girls lived.

[6] Symptoms[7] of the Tanganyika 'laughter epidemic' included laughter and crying, beside general restlessness and pain, as well as fainting, respiratory problems, and rashes.

The stress and anxiety that provokes mass hysteria outbreaks are reactions to perceived threats, cultural transitions, instances of uncertainty, and social stressors.

In 1962, Tanganyika had just won its independence, he said, and students had reported feeling stressed because of higher expectations by teachers and parents.

"[4] Sociologist Robert Bartholomew and psychiatrist Simon Wessely both put forward a culture-specific epidemic hysteria hypothesis, pointing out that the occurrences in 1960s Africa were prevalent in missionary schools and Tanganyikan society was ruled by strict traditional elders, so the likelihood is the hysteria was a manifestation of the cultural dissonance between the "traditional conservatism" at home and the new ideas challenging those beliefs in school, which they termed "conversion reactions".

There is much historical evidence to prove that emotional upheavals associated with hysteria occur whenever a people's cultural roots and beliefs become suddenly shattered" -Benjamin H. Kagwa[10]