The article I reviewed is, Witch Hunts and the Winds of Rumor, which focuses on the topic of mass hysteria. According to this article, "The cause of mass hysteria is often a baseless belief that begins small but, like a hurricane travels and becomes more devastating as it picks up speed."
             Maybe the most well known of all mass hysteria situations was the witchcraft hunt that took place in a small town in New England. Several young girls were hung to death because the community believed they were practicing witchcraft. What began as an initial baseless belief by a small few in the community, grew through embellished and traveled through the community creating hysteria about these girls, eventually leading to their death.
             An example of mass hysteria from this century took place in 1938. Orsen Wells, a well known radio broadcaster, performed a fictional play on air. Because the broadcast was so real, it caused panic throughout the country and actually had millions of people in fear of Martians taking over earth. Due to today's technology false information can be spread a lot faster and result in millions of mislead people.
             One form of mass hysteria is MSI (mass sociogenic illness). MSI can make people feel sick for simply seeing or hearing about viruses. An example of this type of hysteria took place in Florida during a summer camp. While only a single girl in this camp complained of lightheadedness and nausea, within 40 minutes 63 of the 150 campers complained of the same symptoms. After the food was tested for harmful bacteria nothing was found to be harmful. Because of one kid that felt symptoms of being poisoned so did 63 other children, so they thought.
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