The Laughing Epidemic Of 1962
Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0A sign for a school in Kashasha, Tanzania.
In January 1962, three girls at a religious boarding school for girls in Kashasha, Tanganyika (now Tanzania) began laughing and crying uncontrollably. Before long, dozens of their peers joined in — and they were seemingly unable to stop.
According to the afflicted, the laughing attacks came on suddenly and often led to crying, fainting, rashes, and breathing problems. The fits lasted anywhere from a few hours to 16 days — and no one knew what was causing them.
These laughing attacks eventually affected 95 of the school’s 159 students. They were so disruptive that the school was forced to close in March of that year. It reopened in May, but not long after, even more students became afflicted with laughing fits, forcing the school to close once again in June.
Meanwhile, the laughing spread throughout the region. Some 1,000 people in the surrounding area, most of them children, fell victim to these laughing fits, causing 14 schools to temporarily close.
The attacks finally abated after about 18 months, leaving villagers with more questions than answers.
Today, scholars suspect this “laughing epidemic” may have been a case of mass hysteria brought on by the stresses imposed on young students at British-run schools during a time when Tanganyika had just achieved independence and was facing a period of political uncertainty. But the exact cause of the laughing remains a mystery.
