Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic

VERONICA GUARISCO, 2D

Over the course of history, it hasn’t always been viruses and pathogens which have caused epidemics, but also uncontrollable laughter. Although 1962 was a year known for events such as the beginning of the Second Vatican Council, the death of Marilyn Monroe and the nationalization of electricity, another episode dates back to that same period that the most common yearbooks don’t contemplate, known as the “Tanganyika laughter epidemic”. On January 30, in a girls’ school in Tanzania, three students began to laugh at the utterance of a joke, of which we will probably never know the content. In just a few minutes, the pervasive giggle had already taken 95 damsels, infecting everyone present with joy. Incredibly, the laughing wouldn’t stop. In the following hours, the number of students crying with laughter had risen to 159, so many that the institute was forced to close to block the contagion. Despite the apparent joviality of the situation, it was accompanied by potentially-severe symptoms: itching, pain, fainting, shortness of breath. The measures adopted to hold back the situation hadn’t been enough, since

it continued to spread to the nearby village of Kashasha, on Lake Victoria. The school building only reopened 4 months later, in June, however, it had to close its doors again after 30 days, when a middle school near Bukoba became the hotbed of a new laughter epidemic. The origin of the “virus of happiness” has never been discovered, but several luminaries have tried to investigate its less obvious causes. One of the most accredited theories belongs to Mr. Charles Hempelmann of Purdue University, Indiana, who connected the event with the stress that developing countries are often subjected to. In his opinion, the weight of responsibility the youth was invested with that year, when Tanganyika obtained independence from the United Kingdom, has exponentially increased the already persistent mental fatigue. So, should we deduce that nervousness equals hilarity? Whatever the case may be, do not be afraid to be infected by a bit of healthy humor because, in the vast majority of cases, it doesn’t manifest itself to vent to a condition of repressed hysteria, but because of an impetuous desire to live caused by the perilous viral pandemic load. Renowned scientists support the healing power of laughter: it would be the panacea to all evil and among other things it would have the ability to counteract depression, strengthen the immune system and prevent cardiovascular diseases. And, as Phyllis Diller said, remember that a smile is a curve that sets everything right.