Is the human brain life’s biggest mystery? Panic at Heathrow over an imagined chemical spill shows that social contagion can still cause harm.
Airport shutdown case of ‘mass hysteria’
Public paranoia: Mass hysteria, as seen in the medieval dancing plague of Strasbourg, the convulsive fits of biting nuns, and the paranoia of the Salem witch trials, can also manifest in modern times, as seen in the recent panicked evacuations at Heathrow Airport (top left).