Glass instruments causing mass hysteria

Rocco Wallis 12th March 202216th March 2022 0 Comments

After the rise of glass instruments in the 18th century, a fast and steep decline soon came upon this instrument. For some reason, the glass armonica was fatal to those who heard it. The reason why is still not fully understood, but is nonetheless documented. There were many tales of deaths during concerts which lead to the instrument being banned in certain german cities. People thought it scared animals and caused premature births. Some even believed it would raise the dead.

Critics at the time spoke about its unusual sound and how it affected their bodies.

“Its melancholy tone plunges you into dejection..to a point the strongest man could not hear it for an hour without fainting.”
JM Rogers (1803).

“its tunes are of a nearly celestial softness, but can cause spasms”
Thomas Bloch, a modern day glass armonica player.

Modern-day theories of what this instrument did can only be explained by mass hysteria (also known as Mass Psychogenic Illness or MPI). This psychological phenomenon is defined as a condition affecting a group of persons, characterized by excitement or anxiety, irrational behaviour or beliefs, or inexplicable symptoms of illness. Essentially where a group of people have similar symptoms of something that doesn’t exist but they believe it is. The most famous example of this is the dancing plague of 1518, where people would start uncontrollably dancing and couldn’t stop, causing their deaths. This plague took somewhere between 50-400 lives and has only been seen once in human history. Modern-day theories suspect food poisoning or mass hysteria.

“There were plenty of doctors 200 years ago who would have sworn blind that playing that music or even listening to it could kill you, especially if you were a woman, stone dead.”
At the time, “experts” thought a lady’s disposition was too delicate to survive it, It would ‘over strain the nerves’. So they even invented versions of the glass harmonica that you could play with a key board to save those sensitive female nerves, so no more pretty rich girls had to die!”
Dr James Kennaway (2009).

Whilst nowadays, there has not been a case of the glass armonica harming a listener or performer, despite a number of people hearing it. This causes the main theory of the glass armonicas deaths to be linked to mass hysteria, which forced this instrument to go into hiding for nearly 100 years.