The Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic of 1962 was anything but a laughing matter. If people today think that the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 depicted in The Crucible were horrible, imagine what they would say if they knew about this event in history. Unlike the Witch Trials in colonial Massachusetts, the Laughter Epidemic that occurred centuries later was much more painful. This was mostly due to the fact that the main symptom, uncontrollable laughter, lasted anywhere from 6-18 months. The Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic of 1962 and the Salem Witch Trials, as seen in The Crucible, share similarities in that both started with a group of girls and continued for a little more than a year, however there were differences in the areas of death toll and the way people suffered.
Body 1 The story of The Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic started with three girls in the town of Kashasha. The affliction caused hundreds of people to laugh uncontrollably for six to eighteen months. The symptoms spread from three girls to ninety five students causing mass panic in the nearby communities. This epidemic ultimately forced 14 different schools to close their doors. Similarly the Witch Hunts that happened centuries before also began
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The Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic began in January 1962 and the unwieldy symptoms lasted anywhere from six to eighteen months. According to “Examining 1962’s ‘laughter epidemic’ by Simone Bastion (a staff reporter with the Chicago Tribune), “Christian F. Hempleman saying that the incident was caused by “an underlying shared stress factor in the population.”
Body 3
During The Salem Witch Trials, over 200 puritans were falsely accused and of those 200, only 20 of them were executed. On the other hand however, the Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic of 1962 had no casualties, seeing as it is scientifically impossible to die from laughter. In fact, according to
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