An account of the punishment inflicted on the women of Miletus, a city of Ionia, who were seized with an epidemic suicide, is transmitted to us in the writings of Plutarch. He says, “The Milesian virgins were at one time possessed with an uncommon rage for suicide. All desire of life seemed suddenly to leave them, and they rushed on death (by the help of the halter) with an impetuous fury. The tears and entreaties of parents and friends were of no avail; and if they were prevented by force for awhile, they evaded all the attention and vigilance of their observers, and found means to perpetrate the horrid deed. Some ascribed this extraordinary species of desperation and frenzy to certain occult and maddening qualities of the air at that season, somehow or other peculiarly injurious to the female frame and texture, both of body and mind, (since the men were not visibly affected by it;) while the superstitious considered it as a calamity sent from the gods, and therefore beyond the power of human remedy. But whatever was the cause, the effect was visible and important, and could not be suffered to rage long without manifest injury to the state. While speculative men, therefore, were attempting to account for the phenomena, the active magistrate was endeavouring to arrest the progress of the contagion, for which purpose the following decree was issued;—“That the body of every young woman who hanged herself should be dragged naked through the streets by the same rope with which she committed the deed.” This wise edict had in a short time the desired effect. Plutarch adds—“The fear of shame and ignominy is an argument of a good and virtuous mind; and they who regarded not pain and death, which are usually esteemed the most dreadful of evils, could not, however, endure the thoughts of having their dead bodies exposed to indignity and shame.”