Chicago Herald-American, Sept 18

Alienist Declares Mattoon Attacks 'Fear Contagion'

BY EFFIE ALLEY
MATTOON, Ill. Sept. 18 -- What caused Mattoon's reign of terror?
When hysteria sweeps a large number of people there may be other forces at work than fear, according to Dr. Harold S. Hulbert, psychiatrist, who for the first time in history is psychoanalyzing an entire community and diagnosing its illness.
The most important of these, Dr. Hulbert says, is SUGGESTIBILITY--that is, the accepting by one person of the ideas and emotions of another.
Now take the case of Mrs. Carl Cordes of 921 N. 21st st., who was overcome when she picked up a cloth on her front porch on the evening of Sept. 5 four days after the phantom gas-sprayer had first made his appearance in Mattoon.
Like all the other victims, Mrs. Cordes answered the doctor's questions readily, described her symptoms in detail and told all the circumstances of the attack. She began by saying:
"I know I'm a very nervous person. I haven't been well in some time, but I know I didn't imagine this. It was real. I'm sure of that."
The cloth, which was clean, lay on the front porch neatly folded when she first saw it. Thinking that one of the neighbors had wrapped something in it and placed it there, she picked it up. Surprised at finding it empty and noticing a round wet-looking splotch in the center, she involuntarily put it to her nose and smelled. She was over come. She said:
"It went through me like an electric shock. My legs got numb to the knees, my mouth was like it had been scalded with a hot cup of coffee and my nose and throat were awfully sore for two days afterwards.
"No, it didn't bother my eyes."
This gave the doctor the clue he needed and after thanking Mrs. Cordes, we left.
Gas? The doctor answered:
"No--couldn't have been. Remember the eyes. They couldn't have escaped a volatile, poisonous gas."
What then? Mrs. Cordes is a nice woman. A sincere woman, pleasant to deal with. She wouldn't have made this up?
The answer is, of course, that she didn't make it up.

UNCONSCIOUS VICTIM

She was a victim of suggestibility. Unconsciously, she accepted the ideas and emotions of others. She had heard about the gas man. Indeed, he and his depredations were on every one's tongue.
Suggestibility is heightened during times of unusual strain. It is especially marked, Dr. Hulbert says, in two groups of people--those not in a sturdy state of health and those whose mental makeup predisposes them to dread: the type of persons who might think "Wouldn't it be dreadful if that gas man came here" and thus launch themselves on a whole train of imaginings as to the dire results of such a visitation.
But does suggestibility account for the very real illnesses, pains and bodily discomforts these people suffered?
Again the doctor answers yes--suggestibility plus certain rather mysterious tricks that mind and body can perform under stress. Dr. Hulbert explains:
"At times when anxiety tension becomes too great, it is converted into bodily symptoms and the anxiety is thereby relieved. It's a good thing, too, because it helps people to live through some pretty tough spots. It may result in an increase, decrease or distortion of any function of the body.
"Remember that fear--you can call it whatever you want, anxiety, worry, insecurity--is at the bottom of all this business.
"People tell us they were sick at the stomach, nauseated, vomiting. That was a conversion under stress accompanied by increase of function. Their legs were numb or paralyzed, or so weak as to cause them to stagger--a decrease of function. Some reported heavy beating of their hearts--another increase. Some light-headedness or dizziness--decrease again.
"Notice, that no two reported an identical series of symptoms. Similar, yes, but not exactly the same. That is significant, too--"

IT WASN'T GAS

The doctor broke and we put in:
"But, they really were sick, weren't they?"
Whereupon the doctor exploded:
"Of course they were sick "They smelled things, too--our houses are always full of odors and they are coming in from outside all the time. But they weren't smelling poison gas and they weren't sick from it. That is the point." -- Monday, September 18, page 1, 2
(Further details of psychoanalysis of Mattoon gas hysteria in tomorrow's Chicago Herald-American.)