First few Article Sentences
Mass psychogenic illness (MPI) involves symptoms of widespread illness through a specific population without any responsible infectious agent. Also known as mass sociogenic illness, mass psychogenic disorder, epidemic hysteria or simply mass hysteria, this rapid onset of symptoms without any organic basis spread only by sight and sound puts the somatic in the psycho. Due to the subjective nature of this condition, MPI is to bioterrorism what Lazarus Syndrome is to resurrection.
Documented as early as the fifteenth century when nuns throughout western Europe began biting each other, MPI did not historically create a global risk as any purported instance of MPI remained minimal and localized, especially since transmission remains through the senses of sight and sound. Even the alleged loudest sound in recorded history (August 27, 1883 with the volcanic eruption on the Indonesian Island Krakatoa) sounded like artillery to the residents of Australia (2,000 miles away) and gunfire in Mauritius (3,000 miles away). During the four-hour journey for the sound to arrive in Mauritius (travelling at approximately 750 miles per hour), the Krakatoa volcano likely caused some chaos along the way. Nevertheless, there is no recorded event similar to the 1883 eruption, much less a repetitive, catastrophic noise.