Sandy Summary and Analysis

Sandy was a popular student at her school in Miami. When she became ill and fainted during a choral rehearsal in the cafeteria, she was immediately taken to the hospital. Other children soon became ill as well, and authorities began to suspect some type of poisonous gas, perhaps a leak in a pipe. Amid a wide variety of symptoms, hyperventilation appeared to be universal. A thorough search of the building revealed no potential cause, and students who were not in the cafeteria were not ill. Dr. Joel Nitzkin of the pubic health department began to suspect a psychosomatic cause, namely mass hysteria, a condition now known in scientific circles as "collective obsessional behavior." These episodes are quite common among animals (e.g., cattle stampedes) and among human beings as well. In fact, this was the case at the Miami school as...