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February 27, 1949

Tragedy and the Common Man
By ARTHUR MILLER
n this age few tragedies are written. It has often been held that the lack is due to a paucity of heroes among us, or else that modern man has had the blood drawn out of his organs of belief by the skepticism of science, and the heroic attack on life cannot feed on an attitude of reserve and circumspection. For one reason or another, we are often held to be below tragedy-or tragedy above us. The inevitable conclusion is, of course, that the tragic mode is archaic, fit only for the very highly placed, the kings or the kingly, and where this admission is not made in so many words it is most often implied.
I believe that the common man is as apt a subject for tragedy in its highest sense as kings were. On the face of it this ought to be obvious in the light of modern psychiatry, which bases its analysis upon classific formulations, such as Oedipus and Orestes complexes, for instances, which were enacted by royal beings, but which apply to everyone in similar emotional situations.

More simply, when the question of tragedy in art is not at issue, we never hesitate to attribute to the well-placed and the exalted the very same mental processes as the lowly. And finally, if the exaltation of tragic action were truly a property of the high-bred character alone, it is inconceivable that the mass of mankind should cherish tragedy above all other forms, let alone be capable of understanding it.

As a general rule, to which there may be exceptions unknown to me, I think the tragic feeling is evoked in us when we are in the presence of a character who is ready to lay down his life, if need be, to secure one thing-his sense of personal dignity. From Orestes to Hamlet, Medea to Macbeth, the underlying struggle is that of the individual attempting to gain his "rightful" position in his society.

Sometimes he is one who has been displaced from it, sometimes one who seeks t attain it for the first time, but the fateful wound from which the inevitable events spiral is the wound of indignity and its dominant force is indignation. Tragedy, then, is the consequence of a man's total compulsion to evaluate himself justly.

In the sense of having been initiated by the hero himself, the tale always reveals what has been called his "tragic flaw," a failing that is not peculiar to grand or elevated characters. Nor is it necessarily a weakness. The flaw, or crack in the characters, is really nothing-and need be nothing, but his inherent unwillingness to remain passive in the face of what he conceives to be a challenge to his dignity, his image of his rightful status. Only the passive, only those who accept their lot without active retaliation, are "flawless." Most of us are in that category.

But there are among us today, as there always have been, those who act against the scheme of things that degrades them, and in the process of action everything we have accepted out of fear of insensitivity or ignorance is shaken before us and examined, and from this total onslaught by an individual against the seemingly stable cosmos surrounding us-from this total examination of the "unchangeable" environment-comes the terror and the fear that is classically associated with tragedy. More important, from this total questioning of what has previously been unquestioned, we learn. And such a process is not beyond the common man. In revolutions around the world, these past thirty years, he has demonstrated again and again this inner dynamic of all tragedy.

Insistence upon the rank of the tragic hero, or the so-called nobility of his character, is really but a clinging to the outward forms of tragedy. If rank or nobility of character was indispensable, then it would follow that the problems of those with rank were the particular problems of tragedy. But surely the right of one monarch to capture the domain from another no longer raises our passions, nor are our concepts of justice what they were to the mind of an Elizabethan king.

The quality in such plays that does shake us, however, derives from the underlying fear of being displaced, the disaster inherent in being torn away from our chosen image of what and who we are in this world. Among us today this fear is strong, and perhaps stronger, than it ever was. In fact, it is the common man who knows this fear best.

Now, if it is true that tragedy is the consequence of a man's total compulsion to evaluate himself justly, his destruction in the attempt posits a wrong or an evil in his environment. And this is precisely the morality of tragedy and its lesson. The discovery of the moral law, which is what the enlightenment of tragedy consists of, is not the discovery of some abstract or metaphysical quantity.

The tragic right is a condition of life, a condition in which the human personality is able to flower and realize itself. The wrong is the condition which suppresses man, perverts the flowing out of his love and creative instinct. Tragedy enlightens-and it must, in that it points the heroic finger at the enemy of man's freedom. The thrust for freedom is the quality in tragedy which exalts. The revolutionary questioning of the stable environment is what terrifies. In no way is the common man debarred from such thoughts or such actions.

Seen in this light, our lack of tragedy may be partially accounted for by the turn which modern literature has taken toward the purely psychiatric view of life, or the purely sociological. If all our miseries, our indignities, are born and bred within our minds, then all action, let alone the heroic action, is obviously impossible.

And if society alone is responsible for the cramping of our lives, then the protagonist must needs be so pure and faultless as to force us to deny his validity as a character. From neither of these views can tragedy derive, simply because neither represents a balanced concept of life. Above all else, tragedy requires the finest appreciation by the writer of cause and effect.

No tragedy can therefore come about when its author fears to question absolutely everything, when he regards any institution, habit or custom as being either everlasting, immutable or inevitable. In the tragic view the need of man to wholly realize himself is the only fixed star, and whatever it is that hedges his nature and lowers it is ripe for attack and examination. Which is not to say that tragedy must preach revolution.

The Greeks could probe the very heavenly origin of their ways and return to confirm the rightness of laws. And Job could face God in anger, demanding his right and end in submission. But for a moment everything is in suspension, nothing is accepted, and in this sketching and tearing apart of the cosmos, in the very action of so doing, the character gains "size," the tragic stature which is spuriously attached to the royal or the high born in our minds. The commonest of men may take on that stature to the extent of his willingness to throw all he has into the contest, the battle to secure his rightful place in the world.

There is a misconception of tragedy with which I have been struck in review after review, and in many conversations with writers and readers alike. It is the idea that tragedy is of necessity allied to pessimism. Even the dictionary says nothing more about the word than that it means a story with a sad or unhappy ending. This impression is so firmly fixed that I almost hesitate to claim that in truth tragedy implies more optimism in its author than does comedy, and that its final result ought to be the reinforcement of the onlooker's brightest opinions of the human animal.

For, if it is true to say that in essence the tragic hero is intent upon claiming his whole due as a personality, and if this struggle must be total and without reservation, then it automatically demonstrates the indestructible will of man to achieve his humanity.

The possibility of victory must be there in tragedy. Where pathos rules, where pathos is finally derived, a character has fought a battle he could not possibly have won. The pathetic is achieved when the protagonist is, by virtue of his witlessness, his insensitivity, or the very air he gives off, incapable of grappling with a much superior force.

Pathos truly is the mode for the pessimist. But tragedy requires a nicer balance between what is possible and what is impossible. And it is curious, although edifying, that the plays we revere, century after century, are the tragedies. In them, and in them alone, lies the belief-optimistic, if you will, in the perfectibility of man.

It is time, I think, that we who are without kings, took up this bright thread of our history and followed it to the only place it can possibly lead in our time-the heart and spirit of the average man.

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February 27, 1949 Tragedy and the Common ManBy ARTHUR MILLER n this age few tragedies are written. It has often been held that the lack is due to a paucity of heroes among us, or else that modern man has had the blood drawn out of his organs of belief by the skepticism of science, and the heroic attack on life cannot feed on an attitude of reserve and circumspection.

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Astrid's Article
An article about how LGBTQ people are being sought out and banned from military service, similar to a witch hunt.

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Tasia Cloyd - A Timely Warning About Mass Hysteria

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Tasia Cloyd - A Timely Warning About Mass Hysteria

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An article about the military deployment life including, the conflict that the military personnel face during the times of deployment.

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School dress codes and how they interfere with individual rights vs. the good of the group

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School dress codes and how they interfere with individual rights vs. the good of the group

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Annabeth Johnson

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Natalia Smith

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A song about somebody going against odds to try and change their fate. (By Tim Minchin)

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A song about somebody going against odds to try and change their fate. (By Tim Minchin)

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An article about a possible modern day witch hunt.

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similar to how the girls feel obligated to be apart of the "dance"

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similar to how the girls feel obligated to be apart of the "dance"

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Deffner and Dannenhauer

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Chicago teachers go against the standard to argue that standardized testing is unethical. 

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Chicago teachers go against the standard to argue that standardized testing is unethical. 

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Roy Moore said he was a man in a witch hunt by at least 5 other women

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By now, five women have accused Roy Moore of misdeeds, enough that the Republican Senate candidate can finally - without a whiff of intentional irony - compare his plight to the deadly persecutions of tens of thousands of women at the hands of delusional men.

Moore's wife slammed the media organizations that have been reporting on her husband's campaign on Wednesday, calling it a "Judge Moore Witch Hunt" on Facebook.

This followed a statement from Moore's campaign that read: "This is a witch hunt against a man who has had an impeccable career for over 30 years and has always been known as a man of high character."

A witch hunt, against a man.

Well, of course it was - who else but a powerful man would fall victim to a witch hunt?

We remember the " witch hunt atmosphere " that Woody Allen warned about last month, after women began accusing Harvey Weinstein and various Hollywood actors and directors of abuse.

Back in 1998, the supposed victim was President Bill Clinton, accused of bewitching a 20-something-year-old-old intern in the Oval Office.

"This isn't 'All The President's Men,' it's 'The Crucible,' " Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal told the Guardian at the time. He was referring to Arthur Miller's play about an infamous case in 1692, when droves of men in Salem, Mass., were accused of witchcraft, rounded up and . . .

Wait, that's not quite how the history went.

[No, there is no witch hunt against powerful men]

One summer morning in Salem near the turn of the century, six women were stripped naked in a dank jail cell. On a man's orders, every inch of their flesh was probed and prodded, sometimes with needles, in search of what the learned men of the day referred to as a "witch's teat," as Stacy Schiff writes in her book, " The Witches: Suspicion, Betrayal, and Hysteria in 1692 Salem."

The exam went particularly poorly for Bridget Bishop, who had been indicted on five counts of witchcraft. "The midwives probed and pressed in tender areas, gauging sensitivity with pins or needles," Schiff wrote. One reached between her vagina and anus, and announced a strange lump. Yet more proof of Satan.

Bishop's reputation in the community had been shot long before her imprisonment, Schiff wrote. Years earlier she made the mistake of insulting her abusive husband on the Sabbath, and as punishment was gagged and forced to stand with him in the public market. She'd even been accused of witchcraft before - as had tens of thousands of women across the world before her - and been cleared the first time.

But on that June morning in 1692, Bishop was taken to the courtroom for her trial, which would be over by the afternoon. Unlike Roy Moore and Bill Clinton, she had no lawyer.

So she stood there - "filthy and haggard," Schiff wrote - and listened to her sworn accusers, no few of whom were men.

The tailor testified to a "bedroom tryst" with her, after which he was visited by a monster. A sailor said he once saw Bishop melt out of his bedroom window. The miller's son claimed nothing supernatural, but told the court that this 50-something widow showed him more attention "than was proper."

Bishop was found guilty and led back to her cell for the second strip search of the day. The devil's teat could not be found this time, but no matter, she was hanged a week later.

[The Salem witch trials: Why everyone from Trump to Woody Allen still invokes their hysteria]

Such was the experience of one of 17 women killed in Salem's trials, not to mention many more who survived their imprisonment and tortures in 1692. Seven men were killed, too, but they made up a small fraction of that particular witch hunt's victims, as was the case with witch hunts around the world.

Of more than 100,000 people in Europe accused of witchcraft in the 1500s and 1600s, history professor Michelle D. Brock wrote in The Washington Post, half were executed. Eighty percent were women.

Of the others, she wrote, "often these were men who did not meet prescribed norms and expectations of masculinity within a patriarchal society."

And this skewed death toll goes back to at least the dawn of the last millennium.

A woman who sold love charms in a town north of Rome was swept up in a 15th-century purge, accused of transforming into a fly, and sentenced to burn. Ronald Hutton wrote of the incident in his book " The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present" - among countless other cases. One day in Austria in 1115, 30 women were burned in a single town. Many persecutions were based on a Bible verse - " Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live " - though various hysterias have looped in everything from fairy legends to ancient tales of a child-killing demoness named Lilith.

And yes, men were accused and killed, too, but in history's long, expansive witch hunt, the main prey has always been women. In the 15th-century "Malleus Maleficarum," which is essentially a medieval manual for witch hunting, there's a whole section devoted to the question: "Why is it that Women are chiefly addicted to Evil Superstitions?"

Some have tried to figure out if there's a reason for this bias, other than the background levels of misogyny in so many human cultures. One researcher wrote a book about a particular purge in Reformation-era Germany and noted the victims tended to be not just women, but older women.

As the Guardian wrote in its review of the book, this led to some interesting theories: "Witches, by virtue of being menopausal, were unable to contribute to the core activity of village life. And since they were mostly widows too, they were economically marginal and worryingly free from the rule of men."

Others researchers have analyzed the specific breeds of misogyny that motivated the Middle Age's leading demonologists, such as the author of the Maleficarum, "in order to understand why [he] felt it essential to link women to witchcraft."

But these are scholarly theories about events long ago. The men who used to rule Europe and Salem are long gone, and their witch hunts have for the most part gone with them.

[He said he was a Washington Post reporter offering a reward for dirt on Roy Moore. It wasn't true.]

And the powerful men of our own time have shown less interest in studying the phenomenon than in redefining it.

As the New York Times wrote, the reality of witch hunts was so poorly remembered by the mid-20th century that sandwich inventor Arnold Reuben could publicly apply the term to a health inspection at his deli.

Then came President Richard Nixon, who "described Watergate as a 'witch hunt' to his confidants, who promptly leaked the comment to the press," the Times wrote.

And then witch hunts were everywhere: On the lips of Clinton's defenders, and in President Trump's Twitter feed, and now in Moore's news release - in which his alleged persecutors are women who would have been 14 and 16 years old when they say he initiated sexual encounters or assaulted them.

And no, it's not always a man who accuses a woman of hunting him. Sometimes modern-day women use the term, too.

But as the Times wrote, "male politicians are the ones who generally cry 'witch hunt' " - just as their predecessors so often led them.
More reading: Rand Paul's beating and the violent history of lawn maintenance You can thank Oliver Stone's sensationalized 1991 movie for the JFK document release Actually, John Kelly, the failed 'compromise' to avoid Civil War would have enshrined slavery The ironic, enduring legacy of banning 'To Kill a Mockingbird' for racist language

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Analysis | Roy Moore says he's a 'witch hunt' victim. Tell that to thousands of women killed in real ones.

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By now, five women have accused Roy Moore of misdeeds, enough that the Republican Senate candidate can finally - without a whiff of intentional irony - compare his plight to the deadly persecutions of tens of thousands of women at the hands of delusional men.

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The simultaneous, hysterical outbreak about the MRSA

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Article about how the government or a large group has the authority to ban a book, despite the smaller group liking the book.

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Argues that Global Warming isn't caused by human's. It says that it is just an example of mass hysteria.-James M. Inhofe

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Argues that Global Warming isn't caused by human's. It says that it is just an example of mass hysteria.-James M. Inhofe

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Ethan Kopec

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Describes a specific case within the Satanic Panic of the late 20th century.

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Discusses an ethical dilemma: Should self-driving cars swerve to kill on person instead of a group? -Chris Mooney

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Discusses an ethical dilemma: Should self-driving cars swerve to kill on person instead of a group? -Chris Mooney

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Ethan Kopec

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A medieval painting by Pieter Bruegel The Elder that depicts the dancing epidemics of medieval times

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Individual versus Group in Natural Selection

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Individual versus Group in Natural Selection

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Want to start a brawl at an evolution conference? Just bring up the concept of group selection: the idea that one mixed bag of individuals can be "selected" as a group over other heterogeneous groups from the same species. Biologists who would not hesitate to form a group themselves to combat creationism or intelligent design might suddenly start a pie fight to defend the principle that "it's every man for himself."

Yet Charles Darwin himself argued for group selection. He postulated that moral men might not do any better than immoral men but that tribes of moral men would certainly "have an immense advantage" over fractious bands of pirates. By the 1960s, however, selection at the group level was on the outs. Influential theorist George Williams acknowledged that although group selection might be possible, in real life "group-related adaptations do not, in fact, exist."

Richard Dawkins of the University of Cambridge, whose writings have reached millions, maintains that selection might not even reach such a high level of biological organization as the individual organism. Instead, he claims, selection operates on genes-the individual is the embodiment of the selection of thousands of selfish genes, each trying to perpetuate itself.

In the past few decades, however, group selection has made a quiet comeback among evolutionary theorists. E. O. Wilson of Harvard University and David Sloan Wilson (no relation) of Binghamton University are trying to give group selection full-fledged respectability. They are rebranding it as multilevel selection theory: selection constantly takes place on multiple levels simultaneously. And how do you figure the sum of those selections in any real-world circumstance? "We simply have to examine situations on a case-by-case basis," Sloan Wilson says.

But the Wilsons did offer some guidelines in the December 2007 issue of Quarterly Review of Biology. "Adaptation at any level," they write, "requires a process of natural selection at the same level, and tends to be undermined by natural selection at lower levels."

Experiments with actual groups illustrate the point. Pseudomonas fluorescens bacteria quickly suck all the dissolved oxygen out of a liquid habitat, leaving a thin habitable layer near the surface. But some bacteria spontaneously develop a beneficial mutation. These group-saving individuals secrete a polymer that enables bunches of individuals to form floating mats. As a mat, all the bacteria survive, even though most of them expend no metabolic energy producing the polymer. But if the freeloaders get greedy and reproduce too many of their kind, the mat sinks and everybody dies, altruists and freeloaders alike. Among these bacteria, then, groups that maintain enough altruists to float outcompete groups with fewer altruists than that minimum number. The former groups survive, grow and split up into daughter groups. Thus, altruistic individuals can prosper, despite the disadvantage of expending precious resources to produce the polymer.

Perhaps the biggest change that group selection brings to evolutionary theory is its implication for so-called kin selection. What looks like group selection, some theorists argue, can actually be understood as genetic relatedness. Evolutionist J.B.S. Haldane pithily explained kin selection: "I would lay down my life for two brothers or eight cousins." In this view, altruistic bacteria in the Pseudomonas mats are saving close relatives, thereby ensuring the survival of most of the genes they themselves also carry.

Turning that argument on its head, the Wilsons assert that kin selection is a special case of group selection. "The importance of kinship," they note, "is that it increases genetic variation among groups." The individuals within any one group are much more like one another and much less like the individuals in any other group. And that diversity between groups presents clearer choices for group selection. Kinship thus accentuates the importance of selection at the group level as compared with individual selection within the group.

The Wilsons think evolutionists must embrace multilevel selection to do fruitful research in sociobiology-"the study of social behavior from a biological perspective." When doing so, other investigators can keep in mind the Wilsons' handy rule of thumb: "Selfishness beats altruism within groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups."
Note: This article was originally printed with the title, "What's Good for the Group".

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Individual versus Group in Natural Selection

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Want to start a brawl at an evolution conference? Just bring up the concept of group selection: the idea that one mixed bag of individuals can be "selected" as a group over other heterogeneous groups from the same species.

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he effect society can have on one individual.

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he effect society can have on one individual.

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Annabeth Johnson

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How people are posting fake news on social media which affects society by believing everything they read

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How people are posting fake news on social media which affects society by believing everything they read

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Cristina Lewis

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Ethan Kopec

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Anti Semitism ww2 poster

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State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda What is Propaganda? - State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

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This exhibition encourages us to think about what propaganda is, how it works, and how to respond when it aims to divide people and promote violence.

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Teens team up on girl and bully her

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TEXAS CITY, Texas -- Family members of a Houston-area high school student who killed herself are rallying for tighter laws against cyberbullying.

Brandy Vela's family says cyberbullying pushed the 18-year-old over the edge, leading her to shoot herself in the chest Tuesday afternoon at the family's Texas City home as family members watched.

Her father, Raul Vela, said she had been receiving abusive text messages for months from bullies using an untraceable smartphone application. Her father said someone made a fake Facebook page of her, creating another cyberbullying medium.

On Tuesday, Brandy sent an email to her family members telling them she was going to kill herself, CBS Houston affiliate KHOU-TV reports. They rushed home and found her alive.

"We tried to persuade her to put the gun down, but she was determined," Raul Vela told KHOU-TV. "She said she'd come too far to turn back. It was very unfortunate that I had to see that. It's hard when your daughter tells you to turn around. You feel helpless."

"I heard someone crying," Brandy's 22-year-old sister, Jacqueline Vela, told KPRC-TV of Houston, "so I ran upstairs and I looked in her room, and she's against the wall and she has a gun pointed at her chest and she's just crying and crying and I'm like, 'Brandy, please don't. Brandy, no."

Jacqueline Vela said she went to her parents' room, "and I just heard the shot and my dad just yelled, 'Help me. Help me. Help me.'"

"I was almost certain that I could persuade her to put that gun down. It didn't work. She pulled the trigger," Raul Vela said.

Her final cellphone text to her family was, "I love you so much just remember that please and I'm so sorry for everything."

Her family said the harassment focused mainly on Brandy's weight.

"They would make dating websites of her, and they would put her number and they would put her picture (on the sites), and lie about her age and say she is giving herself up for sex for free, to call her," said Jacqueline Vela.

The family said they reported the bullying to the Texas City school district and several law enforcement agencies.

"School was a safe environment for Brandy," said school district spokeswoman Melissa Tortorici. "She had a lot of friends and was thought of warmly by her peers and teachers. She did bring it to the school's attention before Thanksgiving break that she was getting harassing messages to her cellphone outside of school. Our deputy investigated it, and the app that was being used to send the messages was untraceable. We encouraged her to change her phone number."

Brandy Vela changed her number, but bullies always found her, her family said.

"We have lots of incident reports, and they always say the same thing: They can't do anything about it," Jacqueline Vela said.

A Texas City Police Department statement says it continues to investigate the Velas' complaints. Jacqueline Vela told KPRC that she and her siblings have a good idea who may have been behind some of these attacks and have been assisting in the investigation.

The father said that he hopes for stricter laws against cyberbullying and greater awareness of the problem to give some meaning to his daughter's death.

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Cyberbullying pushed Texas teen to commit suicide, family says

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Cyberbullying led Texas high school student to commit suicide in front of loved ones, family says

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Get ready for "Pope-mania" as Pope Francis prepares to make his six-day trip to the United States next week - visiting the cities of Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and New York.

With his arrival on Tuesday, the mass excitement has led to major road and highway closings, school closings and apartment rental listings for thousands of dollars for a single week.

In Philadelphia, over a million dollars are being spent on port-a-potties alone.

Pope paraphernalia - including magnets, bobbleheads and even pope-themed foods like a cheese block replica of Francis - are being sold off the shelves.

As odd as the craze may seem to some, it's nothing compared to other causes of mass hysteria - some of which caused death and illness.

Here are five of the most bizarre:

Dancing Plague of 1518

In 1518, a woman in Strasbourg, France decided to get crazy dancing in the streets.

Despite the fact that no music was playing, she could not stop herself from feeling the rhythm.

According to the BBC, about 400 people joined a short time later - and literally danced themselves to death over the course of a month.

Most of the victims died of heart attacks and exhuastion, but the dancing did not stop. At the time, many people believed that only more dancing would cure the uncontrollable urge.

A possible explanation of this is extreme stress, because in the day there was a shortage of food and many people were dying of starvation.

There was also an influx of diseases such as smallpox, and many people were completely overwhelmed.

Mumbai Sweet Water

In 2006, hundreds of people travelled to Mumbai to experience the "miracle" of the water of one of the most polluted creeks in India.

Known for its sewage and foul smells, locals who drank the water in late August claimed it tasted sweet. This phenomenon lasted only a day, and despite health warnings, people who visited the creek gathered the water in bottles and garbage bags for later use.

According to the BBC, many saw it as a blessing from Makhdoom Ali Mahimi, who was a 13th Century Sufi saint.

A possible explanation is that rain water over the previous few days accrued near the creek, and flowed on top of the salt water because of differences in density.

Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic

If you've ever had a laughing fit, it most likely won't compare to this laughing epidemic of 1962 that started in what is now Tanzania, Africa, close to Lake Victoria.

It is believed to have started with a single joke in a school, and the laughter didn't end for months later. As laughter is contagious, it spread quickly through nearby villages.

According to Christian F. Hempelmann, who was a Purdue University linguistics doctorate at the time, the cause of this phenomenon was most likely stress, and not simply exuberance for life.

He said that this could happen again. The problem is that excessive laughing can cause health issues such as respiratory problems and rashes.

Penis Panic

This syndrome, known officially as "Koro," most commonly affects men in Africa and Southeast Asia.

According to Medical Daily, these men have a debilitating fear that their penis is shrinking and will completely disappear.

Men who suffer from this believe that if their penis shrinks enough and disappears, they will die.

The stress from this syndrome alone can cause all sorts of other health-related issues such as excessive sweating and dizziness. Some people afflicted with the symptom go to extreme measures to "prevent" losing their penis, such as metal clamps, hooks, and fishing lines.

The Toxic Lady

In 1994, Gloria Ramirez, a woman who resided in Riverside, California, was brought to an emergency room suffering from effects of cervical cancer.

The first nurse who took blood fainted, noting a foul smell. A second nurse noted several strange pieces of a manila-like substance floating in the blood, and also fainted.

After a third nurse fainted, the entire emergency room was evacuated, under the belief that Ramirez had a case of toxic contamination. Over a dozen people reported illness.

Ramirez eventually died from kidney failure.

At the time, county officials called Ramirez's death "the most baffling in local history." One explanation is that Ramirez may have been ingesting dimethyl sulfoxide, which is a by-product of paper-making and often used to treat painful bladder symptoms and other medical conditions.

The chemical could have built up as a result of her kidney failure, and the oxygen given to her during the rush to the hospital may have combined with the dimethyl sulfoxide to form the manila-like substances in her blood.
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Cases of mass hysteria throughout history

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Get ready for "Pope-mania" as Pope Francis prepares to make his six-day trip to the United States next week - visiting the cities of Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and New York. With his arrival on Tuesday, the mass excitement has led to major road and highway closings, school closings and apartment rental listings for thousands of dollars for a single week.