This extraordinary nervous agitation commenced in East Tennessee at a “sacramental meeting,” and on that day several hundreds of persons were seized with it. At first uniformly confined to the arms, the quick, convulsive motion went downwards from the elbow, and these jerks succeeded each other after short intervals. For some time no religious meeting was held in which this novel, involuntary exercise was not exhibited by more or less of the audience in that part of the country where it originated. Generally, all who had once been its subjects, continued to be frequently affected, and not only at meeting but at home, and sometimes when entirely alone. After the commencement of the “jerks” they spread rapidly in all directions. Persons drawn by curiosity to visit the congregations where they existed, were often seized, and when they returned home they would communicate them to the people there. In some instances they occurred in remote valleys of the mountains, where the people had no opportunity of communication with the infected. In East Tennessee and the southwestern part of Virginia, their prevalence was the greatest. Soon the “exercise” began to assume a variety of appearances. While the jerks in the arms continued to be the most common form, in many cases the joint of the neck was the seat of the convulsive motion, and was thrown back and forward to an extent and with a celerity which no one could imitate, and which to the spectator was most alarming. A common exercise was dancing, performed by a gentle and not ungraceful motion, but with little variety in the steps. One young woman had what was termed, “the jumping exercise.” It was truly wonderful to observe the violence of the impetus with which she was borne upwards from the ground: it required the united strength of three or four of her companions to confine her down. None of these varieties however, were half so terrible to the spectator, as that which affected the joint of the neck, in which it appeared as if the neck must be broken. Besides these exercises, there were some of the most curious and ludicrous kind. In one, the affected barked like a dog, in another, boxed with fists clenched, striking at any body or thing near, in another, ran with amazing swiftness,--imitated playing on a violin, or sewing with a needle, &c. The affection was “imported into Kentucky” as well as Virginia. Not only was it contagious, but particular kinds of exercise were caught from a stranger visiting a congregation that had known it in other forms of bodily movement.