Was Ripon school gripped by mass psychogenic illness?

What doctors used to call mass hysteria usually occurs among close-knit groups as anxiety weaves its way through, causing physical symptoms

On 15 February 1787, a young woman at a Lancashire cotton mill decided to scare one of her co-workers with a mouse. The prank made medical history. Terrified of the rodent, the woman on the receiving end had a fit that lasted hours. The next day, three more workers suffered violent fits. The day after, six more.

Alarmed and mystified at the epidemic, the owners closed the mill amid rumours of a disease brought in by contaminated cotton. When Dr William St Clare arrived from Preston to investigate, he found 24 people affected. Three worked at another factory five miles down the road. He ended the epidemic swiftly. It was "merely nervous, easily cured, and not introduced by the cotton," he concluded. Suitably reassured, all recovered and no more workers fell ill.