The "Phantom Anesthesist" of Mattoon: A Field Study of Mass Hysteria

8/14/2019 The "Phantom Anesthesist" of Mattoon: A Field Study of Mass Hysteria

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THE PHANTOM ANESTHETIST OF MATTOON:AFIELD STUDY OF MASS HYSTERIA*BY DONALD M. JOHNSON

University of IllinoisTHE story of the phantom anes-thetist begins inMattoon, Illinois,on the first night of September,1944, when a woman reported to thepolice that someone had opened herbedroom window and sprayedher withasickish sweet-smellinggas which par-tially paralyzed her legsand made herill. Soon other cases with similarsymptom s were reported, and the policeorganized afull-scaleeffort to catch theelusive gasser. Some of the Mattooncitizens armed themselves with shot-gunsand sat on their doorstepsto waitfor him; some even claimed that theycaught aglimpse of him and heard himpumping his spray gun. As the num-ber of cases increasedas many asseven in one nightand the facilitiesof the local police seemed inadequateto the size of the task, the state policewith radio-equipped squad cars werecalled in, and scientificcrime detectionexperts went to work, analyzing strayrags for gaseous chemicals and check-ing the records of patients recentlyreleased from state institutions. B eforelongthe phantom anesthetist of Mat-toon had appeared in newspapers allover th e United States, and Mattoonservicemen in New Guinea and Indiawere writing home anxiously inquiringabout their wives and mothers. Afterten days of such excitement, when all

* The writer is indebted to the Research Boardof th e University of Illinois for financial supportof this project, and to Police Commissioner T.V.Wright for his friendly cooperation during thefieldwork at Mattoon. Dr. R. P. Hinshaw kindlylooked over the manuscript.

victims had recovered and no substan-tial clues had been found, the policebegan to talk of imagination andsome of the newspapers ran columnson mass hys teria ; the episode of the phantom anesthetist was over.Journalistically the story died in afew weeks. In the police records thelast attack was reported on September12. Scientifically, however, the episodedemands attention as a fascinating psy-chological phenom enon. Only onecaseof a mental epidemic has been re-ported in recent years: an outburst ofhystericaltwitching in a Louisiana highschool was described by Schuler andParenton(7). They were unable tofind any reference in the standardsources to hysterical epidemics in theUnited Statesfor over forty years, andthey raise the question whether thesephenomena are disappearing. Thewriter, therefore, undertook an investi-gation of the Mattoon case, with twogeneral aims: (i) to preserve, for thesake of the record, an accurate accountof the events, and (2) to attempt ananalysis of the psychological factors in-volved in these events. The investiga-tion consisted chiefly of an analysis ofth e records in the Police Departmentand interviews with those who reportedphysical symptoms from the gas. Thestudywasbegun in the middleof Sep-tember andcontinued untilthe end ofthe year, bu t most of the interviewingwas done in October. All the workwas done by the writer, who assumesresponsibility for this report.

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176 D O N A L D M. J O H N S O NTHE F A C T S OF THE C A S E

Mattoon is a small Illinois city,located about 50milessoutheast of thecenter of the state. The population,accordingto the 1940census,was15,827,of which 98 per cent we re native-bornwhite. It issurrounded by rather pros-perous farm land, and its economy islargely determined by this fact. Inaddition, it is a junction for theIllinoisCentral and the New York Centralrailroads, both of which maintain re-pair shops at this point. There are afew small industries, a shoe factory, afurniture factory, Diesel engine works,a foundry,and the like. All in all it isa fairly typical midwestern city. As aresult of the war it has enjoyed amildboom,but not an upsetting one.

The outlines of the story can bequickly set down as a background fordiscussion of specific questions. OnSeptember i about midnight Mrs. Ahad a friend telephone the police thatshe and her daughter had been gassed.The police found no signs of an in-truder, but Mr. A reported that, whenhe came hom e about two h ours later, hesawa man run from th ewindow. Thepolice were called again, and again theyfound nothing. The next evening theMattoon Daily Journal-Gazette carrieda front-page story on the gas attackand a headline: ANESTHETICPROWLER ONLOOSE.On the following day, Sunday thethird,Mr. Breported to the police thathe and hiswifehad had a similar occur-rence. In the middle of the night ofAugust 31the night before Mrs. A'sattackhe woke up sick, and retched,and asked his wife if the gas had beenleft on . When she woke up she wasunable to walk. At first they hadattributed these symptoms to hot dogseaten the evening before. About thesame time Mr. C, who works nights,

toldthepress thathis wifeand daugh-ter had likewise been attacked. Thedaughter wokeup coughing and, whenMrs. C got up to take care of her, sh ecould hardly walk. They did not sus-pectgas until they read the papers nextday. These two accounts appeared inthe Mattoon paper on September 5,since no paper was printed on Sundaythe third or Labor Day the fourth.On the evening of September 5 twonew attacks were recorded. Mrs. Dcame home with her husband about10.30,pickedup acloth fromthe porch,smelled it, and reported that the fumesburned her mouth and lips so badlythat they bled. Mr. E, who worksnights, reported that his wife heardsomeone at the bedroom window,smelled gas, and waspartially paralyzedby it.On the sixth three more cases oc-curred, according to the police records.On the seventh, none; on the eighth,four; on the ninth, five; and on thetenth, seven. This apparently was theclimax of the affair, for no cases werereported on the eleventh, only one onth e twelfth, and none thereafter.The symptoms reported were nauseaand vomiting, palpitations, paralysisofthe legs, dryness of the mouth andthroat and, in one case at least, burnsabout the m outh . All cases recoveredrapidly, hence there waslittle possibilityfor outside check on the symptoms.Four caseswe re seenbyphysicians,whodiagnosed all cases as hysteria.In at least three cases, so the testi-mony goes, the family dog must hav ebeen gassed also since he did not barkat th e intruder.

Those who reported smelling the gasdescribed it as a musty smell, sick-ish, like gardenias, or like cheapperfume. In some cases, thoughsymptoms were reported, the gas wasnot smelled.


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T H E P H A N T O M A N E S T H E T I S T O F M A T T O O N 177Police activity took several directions.Most important, probably, was theattempt to catch the mad gasser in

flagrantedelicto. The police answeredall telephone calls as soon as possibleand, when the state police came intothe picture with modern radio equip-ment, were often able to surround ahouse, in the words of the Commis-sioner of Police, before the phone wasback on the hook. Despite all thisand despite the amateur efforts of anexcited citizenry no one was ever appre-hended in the act. Less direct pro-cedures revolved around examinationof a few objects found near houseswhere attacks had been reported, par-ticularly chemical analysis of the clothfound by Mrs. D, and the usualround-up ofsuspicious characters. Theresults of these attempts were also nega-tive. On the eleventh the Commis-sioner of Police put a note in the paperrequesting that roving bands of menand boys should disband, and thatgunsbe put away because some inno-cent person may get killed. Ab outthe same time the police adopted thepolicy of having the victims sent to ahospital forexamination.

G A S O R H Y S T E R I A ?Obviously something extraordinarytook place in Mattoon, and for its ex-planation two hypotheses have beenadvanced. The gasser hypothesisasserts that the symptoms were pro-duced by a gas which was sprayed onthe victims by some ingenious fiendwhohas been able to elude the police.This explanation was disseminated bynewspapers throughout th e country, atthe beginning of the episode at least,and it is widely believed in Mattoon atpresent. The alternative hypothesisisthatthesymptoms weredue tohy steria.The evidence for the gasser hy-pothesis comes from the reports of the

victims concerning their symptoms,re-ports which are notoriously difficult tocheck. The fact that vomiting didoccur was authenticated in a few casesby outside testimony but, since vomit-ing could be produced by gas or hys-teria or dietary indiscretions, this factis not crucial. There is plenty of evi-dence from the police and other ob-servers that the victims were emotion-ally upset by their experiences, but thistoo is not a crucialpoint.Another difficulty with the gasserhypothesis is the self-contradictoryde-mands it makes on the gas. In orderto produce effects of the kind reportedwhen sprayed through a window itwould have to be a very potent stableanesthetic with rapid action, and at thesame timesounstable thatit would notaffect others in the same room. Itwould haveto bestrongenough to pro-duce vomiting and paralysis, and yetleaveno observable after-effects. Studyof a standard source on anestheticsandwar gases(3) and consultation withmedical and chemical colleagues at theUniversity ofIllinoisindicates that theexistence of such a gas is highly im-probable. Chemists are extremely skep-tical of the possibility that such anextraordinary gas could be producedby some mad genius work ing in abasement.Several people reported seeing aprowler who might be the anesthet-ist. Thistoo is not an important mat-ter since prowlers have been reportedto the police in Mattoon onceor twicea week fo r several years. An d, ofcourse, prowlers do not p roduce paraly-sis or dry throats.A minor weakness in the gas hy-pothesis is the lack of a motive. Nomoney was stolen, and the circum-stances were such that there would belittle gratification for a peeper.The best evidence for the hysteria


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178 D O N A L D M. J O H N S O Nhypothesis is the nature of the symp-toms and the fact that those cases seenby physiciansthough there were onlyfourwere diagnosed as hysteria. Allsymptoms reported are common inhysteria and can be found in the medi-calliteraturefor many years back. Forexample, here is a description of a mildhysterical attack dated about ahundredyears ago. Janet (4) quotes it fromBriquet:

I choose, for an example, what happens toa woman somewhat impressionable who ex-periences a quick and lively emotion. Sh einstantly feels a constriction at the epigas-trium; experiences oppression, her heartpalpitates, something rises in her throat andchokes her; in short, sh e feels in all herlimbs a discomfort which causes them in away to drop; or else it is an agitation, anecessity for movement, which causes a con-traction of the muscles. This is indeed theexact model of the most common hystericalaccident, of the most ordinary hystericalspasm, (pp. 376-377)

The hypothesis of hysteria accountsfor th erapid recovery of all victims andthe lack of after-effects. It explainswhy no gasser was found in spite ofmobilization of local and state policeandvolunteers. It accounts for the factthat nothing was stolen and that dogsdid not bark. The objections to thehypothesis of hysteria come from thevictims themselvesquite naturallyan d from others who do not realize th eintensity and variety of effects whichareproduced bypsychological forces.Some who like compromises mayargue that these tw o explanations arenot exclusive, that there may have beena gasser at first even though th e laterspread of the symptoms was an hysteri-cal phenomenon. The anesthetistsoon become scared and ceased hisfiendish activities. We may grant th echarm of compromise as a generalthing but insist that th e above argu-ments still holdfor the first part ofthe episode as well as the last. The

hypothesis of hysteria fits all the evi-dence, without remainder.Q U A N T I T A T I V E D A T A O N C H R O N O L O G Y

If we consider the whole affair as apsychogenic one, as a mental epi-demic due chiefly to suggestion, thesequence of events takeson aparticularsignificance, and fortunately a more-or-lessobjective chronology of the case isfurnished by records of telephone callsto th e Police Department. In theMattoon Police Department th e desksergeant regularly records thedateandtime of all calls and a brief note of thenature of the call and subsequentpoliceaction. From these records callsspecifi-cally reporting a gassing were easilysegregated. An oth er category of calls,usually designated as prowler callsby the police, was found to be useful.This designation means that someonephoned and reported that a man wasacting strangely on the street, or thatnoises were heard on the back porch,and that, when th e police answered th ecall, they could find no evidence of anydamage or break-in. The records werebrokendown inthisway for the periodof the excitement and a few weeksbefore and after.1 Figure i shows thetrends which appear when these dataare grouped into weekly intervals.

The gasser curve starts from zero,reaches a peak rapidly, and rapidlyreturns to the baseline, as one wouldexpect. (The decline is actually quitesharp, as noted earlier, though in thefigure it appears moregradualthantherisebecauseof the grouping into weeklyintervals.) The prowler curve risesand falls with the gasser curve, aparallel which' cannot be merely coinci-dental. Since th e police do not list acall as a prowler call if they findevidence ofdamage or entry, it is likelyThe writer is very gratefifl to Sgt. EdwardDavidson for carrying out a day-by-day analysisof these records.


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THE PHANTOM ANESTHETIST OF M A T T O O N 179that these calls result, in many cases atleast, from psychological causes operat-ing in avagueor ambiguous perceptualsituation. Thus, during a period ofgreatexcitement likea manhunt,whenanticipation is intense, the number ofprowler calls would increase. Simi-larly, as the excitement subsides, thenumber of such calls would subside.

13 20 27 3 10 17 24 I B 15AUG. SEPT O CT.FIG. I. A N A L Y S I S OF R E C O R D S OF TELE-P H O N E C A L L S T O T H E M A T T O O N' P O L I C E D E P A R T M E N TGasser calls begin on September 2,increase rapidly, and decrease rapidly tozero. Prowler calls, which develop outof an unstructured situation, begin in thisgraph attheir averagelevel,risewith theexcitement of the gasser episode, and fallto zero as contra-suggestibility develops.Total calls at the police station begin attheaverage level, rise withthe increaseingasser activities, decline as contra-sug-gestibility develops, then return to theaverage level.

The most striking fact is that therewere so few prowler calls in the lastpart of September and none whateverin October until justbeforeHallowe'en.This is very unusual, according to thepolice, and a check of the records forthe same months in 1943 discloses nosimilar fluctuations. The only plausibleexplanation isthatthe lackof prowlercalls results from the development ofcontra-suggestibility. After hearing ofthe phantom anesthetist and thenof imagination and hysteria, thepeople who ordinarily would havecalled the police when they heard a

suspicious noise became critical andinhibited their imagination.The curve for total calls is similar.

Police business in general increasedsharply during the gasser episode,then declined for a few weeks beforecomingback to normal.In the light of the evidence presentedthus far it seems proper to speak of awave of excitement or a mental epi-demic sweeping through Mattoon.The people who succumbed to the epi-demic can be grouped into three classesaccording to the intensity of their re-sponse. In the first class are thosewho merely put off their evening strolland locked their windows more care-fully than usual. Such conduct wouldof course be called sensible andhardly requires any explanation, but itmust be remembered that there weremany in Mattoonperhaps a ma-joritywho completely ignored th eincident. In the second classare thosewho reported to the police that theysaw or heard a prowler. A report ofthis kind indicates a higher level ofsusceptibility since it means that sug-gestion enters into and complicates per-ception. The third classismade up ofthose who reported physical symptomsfrom gassing. The occurrenceof thephysical symptoms indicates a highdegreeof suggestibility, on the averageat least, and perhaps some constitu-tional predisposition to physical com-plaints as well.

A G E N C I E S O F C O M M U N I C A T I O NHow was the suggestion carried toall these people so quickly and uni-formly? There are threepossibilities:direct face-to-face contact between vic-tims, indirect conversation or gossip,and the newspapers. In talking to thevictims the investigator attempted todetermine when and how eachhad firstheard of the phantom anesthetist.


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i8o DONALD M, J O H N S O NThe replies gave very little evidence offace-to-face contact. With the excep-tion of four cases in which two peoplelived together an d we re attacked atthe same time it seems thatthe victimswere practically unkno wn to each other.The possibility of indirect contactthrough neighborhood chatting is amore likely one, and onewhich is diffi-cult to check. The chief argumentagainst this avenueofcommunication isthat it takes time, and the epidemicspread rapidly. The cases were widelyscattered throughout the town, and, aswe shall see later, only about athirdofth e victimsh ad telephones.As a means of communication thenewspaper is, of course, the most effec-tive. According to 1941 figures (9) 97pe r cent of Mattoon families read theMattoon Daily Journal-Gazette everyevening except Sunday. This is theonly paper with a large circulation inMattoon, and obviously it is the sourceto which most residents would turn forinformation in a case of this kind. Itis necessary, therefore, to examineth e Journal-Gazette s treatment of thestory and to analyze its psychologicalinfluence.The Mattoon Daily Journal-Gazette,wh ich usua lly run s to abo ut eight pages,resembles other small newspapers bothin size and in editorial policy. In gen-eral its treatment of the news is con-servative, and one would expect that itsreaders have confidence in its reliabil-ity. No one would consider it a sen-sational paper. When a headline, ANESTHETIC PROWLER ONLOOSE, appeared, thereforeas itdid Saturday evening,September 2itwas no doubt takenat face value. Thestory,which ran on the front pagein afull column headed Mrs. (A) andDaughter First Victims, was writtenas a straightforward news item. In-cluding the headline it covered 47

square inches.2 In retrospect it makesrather interesting reading. The carefulreader'seye iscaughtparticularly by theword First in the heading, since onlythe one case is mentioned. Whetherthis was an instance of prophetic in-sightor merely an error is not known,but the word does now, and probablydidthen,arouseatingleofanticipation.

On the next tw o days, Sunday andLabor Day, nopaper wasprinted, buton Tuesday, the fifth, 26 square inchesappeared on page six. On the sixththere were 40 square inches, includinga headline, on the front page. On theseventh 29 square inches were used,including a headline, MAD ANES-THETIST STRIKES AGAIN. Noheadline was used on the eighth andonly 28 square inches of space. Objec-tively and in terms of newspaper spacethe excitement seemed to be dyingdown. Butnotethe first paragraph:

Mattoon's mad anesthetist apparentlytook a respite from his maniacal foraysThursday night an d while many terrorstrickenpeople were somewhat relieved theywere inclined to hold their breath and won-der when and where he might strike next.Several attacks were reported thatnight, and on the evening of the nintha three-quarter-inch headline was used,

crowding the war news to a secondaryposition. In all, the story took up 51square inches of space. Ev idently theclimax is approaching. Up to thispoint the reader is treated to an ab-sorbing horror storywith a mysteri-ous ma raude r whose maniacal foraysincrease in a fantastic crescendo, afrightful new scientific device for gas-2Measurement of newspaper space, as for our

purposes, is not well standa rdized. In the presentanalysis the square inch is used, and the figuresgiven includ e headlines and photographs as wellastext. Thosewho like to think in termsof thecolumn inch ca n halve these figures and get thelength of a standard two-inch column whichwould contain the material.


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THE PHANTOM ANESTHETIST OF M A T T O O N 181sing the victims, and a succession oftantalizing clues. His interest may bearoused to the point where he partici-pates in the manhuntvicariously,through reading about the scientific in-vestigations of the state crime-detectionexperts or trying out his own hunches,or actually,byfollowing thepolice carsor patrolling th e streets. In other casesit was not the thrill of the chase whichwasaroused but apprehension an d fear.It was in these people that the hysteri-cal symptoms appeared.On the eleventh (the tenth was Sun-day) the tone of the story changes.Although 62 square inches were giventothe story,theheadline contained thephrase fe w real and the treatment iscritical. No headline was used on thetwelfth and the keynote phrase washysteriaabates ; the story took up 28square inches. The next evening acomical twist is given to the affair,expanding it to 59 square inches abouttwo false alarms which turned out tobe a black cat and a doctor trying tobreak into his own office after he hadforgotten his keys. On the fourteenththe account falls to 19 square inches,and next evening it is put back onpage six with only 14 square inches,although a box of 10 square inchesappeared on the frontpage tellinghowwidely the story had been circulated.The Journal-Gazette dropped theaffair from this point to the twentieth,when an editorial was printed, appar-ently in reply to some ribbing by aDecatur paper. The editorial assertedthat, although much of the excitementmay have been due to hysteria, therereally had been some odors in Mat-toonperhaps blown up from Decatur.With this epilogue th e drama takes itsleave fromthe columns of the MattoonDaily Journal-Gazette .Of the out-of-town newspapers theChicago Daily Tribune and theC hicago

Daily News have the largest circula-tions in Mattoon, with coverages of 24pe rcentand 20 percent respectively(9).The Tribune started the story on thesixth with 10 square inches and gave it20 to 30 square inches each day there-after until the fifteenth. The editorialviewpoint of the story became skepticalabout the twelfth. The Daily Newstreatment wassimilar except that it ranphotographs and did not question theauthenticityof the anesthetist. Thesepapers have enough circulation in Mat-toon to have an important influencebut, since they came in late and sincetheir readers read the local paper also,theirinfluencewasprobably merely oneof emphasis and reinforcement.The Chicago Herald-American,though its coverage in Mattoon is onlyabout 5 per cent (9), handled the storymost thoroughly and most sensation-ally. Its text and photographs were

often cited to the investigator. Itstarted lateon the eighthwith 41square inches, including a photograph.The opening paragraphs of the front-page storv which appeared on the tenthareworthquoting.Groggy as Londoners under protractedaerialblitzing,thistown's bewildered citizensreeled today under the repeated attacks of amad anesthetist who has sprayed a deadlynerve gas into 13homes and has knocked out

27 victims.Seventy others dashing to the area inresponse to the alarm, fell under th e influ-enceof the gaslast night.All skepticism has vanished an d Mattoongrimly concedes it must fight haphazardlyagainst a demented phantom adversary whohas been seen only fleetingly and so far hasevaded traps laid bycityand state police andposses of townsmen.By the eleventh th e story was up to

71 square inches, including a i^-inchheadline: STATE HUNTS GASMADMAN. On the twelfth it wasgiven 95 square inches, with picturesofcrying babies on the front page. After


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8 D O N A L D M. J O H N S O Nthat th e account becomes somewhatcritical but continues to carry hints thatth e gasser may be a woman, or anapeman, and the like. On Sunday, th eseventeenth, however, after th e otherpapers had dropped th e story, th eHerald-American printed a long inter-view with a psychiatrist, Dr. HaroldHulburt, beginning at the top of thefront page above th e headline, andcovering 196 square inches, with severalphotograph's. This article discusses th edynamics of hysteria in general andincludes some sympathetic conjecturesregarding unconscious motives of Mrs.A. Further articles resulting from th einterview with th e psychiatrist ap-peared on the eighteenth and thetwentieth. On December 3The Ameri-can Weekly, a Sunday supplement ofth e Herald-American, carried a full-page article by Donald Laird entitled The Manh unt for Mr.Nobody.

The story was carried by the pressservices and was used or ignored bynewspapers throughout th e countryaccording to their editorial policies.The New Yor^ Times for instance,didnot refer to it, while PM had 12 squareinches on the seventh and 5 on thetwelfth. The Stars Stripes (LondonEdition) carried 7 square inches on theeleventh. Among th e weeklies, News-wee\ for September 18 carried 20square inches, while Time for the samedate carried 26. Both of these accountswere skepticalTime was even sar-casticbut neither dared come to anydefinite conclusions. Time elevated th enumber ofcases at the peak from sevento seventeen. Dispatch, aweeklyof thePersian Gulf Command, gave it 13square inches on the eighteenth.

33Radio treatment of th e story was not consid-ered important enough to warrant study. Thereis no radio station at Mattoon, and no one inMattoon or elsewhere mentioned a radio accountto the investigator. In general, radio editors treatthese stories conservatively.

Striking evidence of the interestaroused by these accounts comes fromthe large number of letters and tele-gramsestimated at about 300whichwere receivedby Mattoon officials fromall over th e United States. The writerexamined a sample of 30 of these andfound half of them more-or-less sen-sible, though ill-informed, containingsuggestions fo rcapturing th e menace.The other half could be judged psycho-pathicon the basis of ideas of self-reference, intensity of affect, and thecombination of poor judgment withgood vocabulary and expression. Para-noid trends were common.

C H A R A C T E R I S T I C S O F T H E S U S C E P T I B L ES A M P L E

Thusfar in our investigation wehavetreated the Mattoon affair as a socialphenomenon. The next question, andperhaps th e most important, concernsth e individuals in the affair. W hywere some people susceptible whiletheir nextdoor neighbors were not?Phrased in more workable form th equestion becomes one of finding differ-ences between the susceptible sampleand the rest of the population of Mat-toon. The experimental literature onsuggestibility and the clinical literatureon hysteria offered several attractivehypotheses for check, but the na ture ofth e case put a distinct limitation on themethods which could be used. It wasapparent from the first few interviewsthat the victims, while they would talkabout th e gassing, and their symp-toms, and similar superficial matters,would not be willing to cooperate inany inquiry directed toward, forexample, unconscious motivation. Theyhad been victimized twice: once by theconcatenation of factors, environmentaland personal, which produced th esymptoms, and later by publicity andgossip, which carried the implication


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THE PHANTPM ANESTHETIST OF M A T T O O N 183that peoplewho have hysterical attacksare more peculiar, or less sincere, thantheir neighbors. For these reasons thebest one could hope for was a descrip-tion of the sample in respect of a fewobjective characteristics.

The 1940 Census Reports(8) givedata on. a numberof characteristicsofthe Mattoon population; getting thesame data for our sample would permita comparison in these respects. Thosecharacteristics were selected whichseemed easy to verify and of possiblesignificance for the present problem:age, sex, schooling, economic level, andoccupation. Age was estimated and, indoubtful cases, checked by the estimatesof acquaintances. To get a picture ofthe economic level of the sample fourconveniences were used as indices:radio, mechanical refrigerator, elec-tricity, and telephone. Percentages forthe first three are given in the CensusReports. The number of residentialtelephones in Mattoon was kindly fur-nished by the manager of the local tele-phoneagency,and the percentage com-puted in reference to the number ofoccupied dwelling units given in theCensus Reports. The Census Bureau'sdescriptions of their occupational cate-gories were studied before the inter-viewing began so that the necessarydata could be obtained. For example,the Reports state specifically that rail-way brakemen are classed as Opera-tives while locomotive engineers andfiremen are classed as Craftsmen,Foremen andKindred Workers. Fur-thermorein a small townlike Mattoonthe varietyof jobs is limited and cross-checking is relatively easy. Henceplacing the occupations of the sampleinto the Census Bureau's categoriesoffered less difficulty than might be ex-pected. A woman's occupation wasused if she worked, otherwise her hus-band's. (Only two women had hus-

bandsin military service. One of theseworked, henceher own occupation wasused. In the other case the husbandhad been inducted only recently so hiscivilian occupation wasused.) All thesedata are brought together in Tableifor comparison with similar data fo rthe total population of Mattoon.

TABLE iTHE SAMPLE OF GASSER VICTIMS COMPARED

WITH THE TOTAL POPULATION OFMAT-TOON IN RESPECT TO CERTAIN

OBJECTIV E CHARACTERISTICS

SexWomenAgeBelow jo10-1920-2930-3940-4950-5960-69Over 70

EducationGrade school onlySome high schoolSome collegeIndices of Economic LevelElectricityRadioMechanical refrigeratorTelephone

Occupational CategoriesProfessional andsem i-professionalProprietors, managers,and officialsClerical, sales,andkindre d workersCraftsmen, foremen, an d kindredworkersOperativesLaborers, farm laborers, an d farmforemenDomesticservice workersService workers, except domestic

P

NO

SMP

93

371 621161

7 129o88 0 833o1632537

JO

P

NOF

POUO|[

52M18171513176

5832109591466071321

1624559

Statistically speaking, the sample issmall; the number of cases on whichthe percentages in Tablei are based


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18 4 D O N A L D M. J O H N S O Nvaries from 14 for schooling to 29 fors e x . The table includes, however,nearly all the cases in which physicalsymptoms were reported. The investi-gator checked policerecordsand news-paper accounts for names and found afe w others while interviewing. Twopeople could not be found at homedespite repeated calls. Three had lefttown. One would not talk to the in-vestigator. Some of the data on thesewere obtained from acquaintances.Table i gives us at least a partial de-scription of the people who were mostintensely affected by the excitement.To begin with, th e sample has amuch greater proportion of womenthan the general population of the city.This is in agreement with th e labora-tory studies on suggestibility(:) andth e clinical reports on hysteria(5, 6).All of the cases have b een m arried butone, who was about twenty years old.As to the age data a word of explana-tion is necessary. In threecasesmothersreported that their children had beengassed. Since the investigator didnot talk to the children apart fromtheir mothers, these cases were elimi-nated. In two of these cases themothers reported symptoms for them-selves also, hence it is only the age datawhich are affected. Aside from th eabsence of children the most noticeabledifference between the sample and thepopulation is the surplus in the agegroup 20 to 29. The significance ofthis, if it is not accidental, is notobvious.Since children are more suggestiblethan adults(i), why were there notmore children in the sample? Manychildren probably did accept the sug-gestion in the sense that they reportedto their parents that they saw thegasser or smelled th e gas. W hile th edynamics of symptom-formation arenot well understood and may be differ-

ent in each case, it does seem likely thatadults would be more inclined to thewithdrawing, incapacitating sort ofsymptoms which appeared in this epi-demic than children. In the casereported by Schuler and Parenton (7)among high-school children th e symp-toms were of a more positive, livelynature.In education the sample is below thetotal population. This toomight havebeen predicted from the literature onsuggestibility.

From the economic indices it seemsclear that the sample is less prosperousthan the population at large, at least inrespect to these four conveniences. Theinvestigator also classified the sampleinto the economic groups A, B, C, andD, according to a widely used schemebased on the locationand appearanceofth e home, occupation, conveniences,and the like. (The investigator has hadsome experience in using this schemein consumer research for the Psycho-logical Corporation.) In term s of thesecategories the sample was about equallydivided between the C and the Dgroups. There were tw o cases whichcould possibly have been put into theB group. It is noteworthy that noattacks occurred in either of Mattoon'stw o high-income areas.Our sample,then, ischaracterized bylow educational and economic level.These two characteristicsgo together inour culture. In astudy similar in somerespects to the present study Cantril (2 )found that those people who were moststrongly influen ced by the O rson Welles1938 broadcast, War of the Worlds,were likewise of low educational andeconomic level. No doubt it is educa-cation which is more directly related tosuggestibility. Can tril fou nd that th ebetter educated were more critical inthat they made more and better outsidechecks on the authenticityof the broad-


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THE P H A N T O M A N E S T H E T I S T OF M A T T O O N i85cast and thus were less frequentlypanicked.

The dataon occupationare not clear-cut since the categories used by theCensus B ureau were not constructed forstudies ofthis kind. As the number ofcases on which good occupational datawere availablewas only 19,the numberin some categories was small, and somerearrangement was advisable. Thecategory Farmersand farmmanagerswas eliminated as there were none inthe sample and less thani per cent inth e general pop ulation. Professionaland semi-professional classes were com-bined. Laborers, except farm wascombined with Farm laborers andfarm foremen. The category Pro-prietors, managers, and officials is abroad one which could include a widevariety of people, hence it is of littleuse to us. The proprietors in oursample were proprietors of small shopsan d rooming houses.

AsitstandsTablei shows a lackofany professional or semi-professionalpeople, which agrees with th e data oneducational level. A fairly clear-cutvertical comparison can be made if weconsider the craftsmen and foremen asskilled workers, the operativesas semi-skilled, and the laborers as unskilled.The proportion of the sample in thesethree groups decreasesin comparisonwith the proportion in the populationat largeas the amount of skillincreases.It is hard to account for the lackof service workers and domestic serv-ice workers in the sample. The sus-ceptibility of domestics might be in-fluenced by their living arrangementsand by contact with their emp loyers,who in general are in the educated,high-income group. As to the otherservice workers, one explanationis thatpolice, firemen, and hospital worke rswere in a sense on the inside. Also,

it is known that, while there has beenlittle changein the Mattoon populationin general since 1940, jobs connectedwith the servicing of automobiles havedecreased considerably. B ut none ofthese explanations isveryconvincing.The interviews, one caneasily realize,were conducted under rather unfavor-able conditions. It was not possible toget any insight into personality makeupof the victims except in a very super-ficial way . B ut it was possible usuallyfor th e investigator to work in a fewgeneral questions about th e victim'shealth. In only fourteen cases was anyinformation obtained in this way, but,of these, eight, or over half, replied withsuch phrases as always been nervous,never sleepmuch, and doctoring fornerves. W e have no control data forth e total population, but the percentagedoes seem extraordinarily high. Theinterview data do not go far, but theyreinforce the diagnosis of hysteria andshow,as far as theygo,that, extraordi-nary as the Mattoon affair may be onth e surface, psychologically it follows afamiliar pattern.

C O N C L U S I O N SAnalysis of records available at Mat-toon together with the results of inter-

views with most of the victims leads tothe conclusion that the case of the phantom anesthetist was entirely psy-chogenic. There is always the possi-bility of a prowler, of course, and it isquite likely that some sort of gas couldbe smelled atvarious timesin Mattoon.B ut these things do not cause paralysisand palpitations. Hyste ria does. Thehypothesis of a marauder cannot besupported by any verifiable evidence.The hypothesisofhysteria,on the otherhand, accounts for all the facts.What, then, produced this mass hys-teria? There are some gaps in thestory, to be sure, but a fairly clear pic-


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i86 D O N A L D M . J O H N S O Nturecan now bedrawn. Mrs.A had amild hysterical attack, an event whichis not at all uncommon, which is, onth e contrary, familiar to most physi-cians. The crucial point is that herinterpretation of her symptoms wasrather dramatica quick look throughany textbook (e.g., 5, 6) will convinceany reader that hysterical symptomsusually are dramaticarousing the in-terest of the press, with the result thatan exciting uncritical story of thecase appeared in the evening paper.As th e news spread, other people re -ported similar symptoms, more excitingstories were written, and so the affairsnowballed.B ut such acute outbursts are neces-sarily self-limiting. The bizarre detailswhich captured th e public imaginationat the beginning of the episode becamerather ridiculous when studied moreleisurely. The dram a of the story lostit s tang with time and the absurditiesshowed through.' For example, thevolatility of thegas,which was such anasset in pe netrating physical barrie rs,became a liability when anyone tried tocapture the gas and examine it. Thefacts seemed to evaporate as rapidly asthe agent which produced them. Atlast the failure of the police and volun-teers to find anyone or anything tan-gible (thebest th e news photographerscould do was to pose women pointingat windows, babies crying, and menholding shotguns) combined with th estatements of city officials in the paperproduced a more critical public attitude.The attacks ceased. The critical atti-tude increased and spread, however;

police business struck a new low. It isproper to saythat the wave of suggesti-bility in Mattoon left a wave of contra-suggestibility in its wake. Objectiverecords document this generalization.Naturally th emore suggestible peopleaccepted the story at face value. Ofthese only a small percentage reportedphysical symptoms from gassing,presumably because of some personalmotivation toward, or gratificationfrom, such symptoms. As might bepredicted from psychological andpsy-chiatric literature, those w ho succumbedto the mental epidemic were mostlywomen andwere,on the average, belowth e general population in educationaland economic level. This supports theabove analysis and puts th e phantomanesthetist of Mattoon, in some aspectsat least, into a familiar psychologicalpattern.

REFERENCES1. BIRD, C. Social psychology. New York:Appleton-Century, 1940.2. C A N T R I L , H. The invasion from Mars.Princeton, N. J.: Princeton Univ. Press,1940.3. G O O D M A N , L., &GILMAN, A. Th e pharmaco-logical basis of therapeutics. Ne w York:Macmillan, 1940.4. J A N E T , P. The mental state of hysterical.New York: Putnam's, 1901.5. R O S A N O F F , A. J. (Ed.) Manual o f psy-

chiatry. New York; Wiley, 1920.6. S A D L E R , W. S. Theory an d practice o fpsy-chiatry. St. Louis: Mosby, 1936 .7. S C H U L E R , E. A., & P A R E N T O N , V . J. A recentepidemic o hysteria in a Louisiana highschool. /. foe. Psychol., 1943, 17 2 2 1 235-8. U. S. B U R E A U OF THE C E N S U S . i6th censuso f th e United States. Washington, D. C.:U. S. Govt. Printing Office, 1942.9. Illinois Daily Newspaper Markets. Paul L.Gorham, Leland Bldg., Springfield, 111.

The "Phantom Anesthesist" of Mattoon: A Field Study of Mass Hysteria

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