“I saw several young ladies…, who began to be uncommonly exercised…. It appeared to mortify and embarrass them very much, when they had ‘the power’ as it was called…. [T]heir shoulders would be seized with violent and sudden convulsions, the neck, also, would be affected with spasms, which threw back the head in a frightful manner….”
“The duration of this epidemic was much shorter than that of most of those in Europe. In a little more than a twelve-month, it had almost entirely disappeared…. It was to the scenes enacted at this time, we believe, that the epithet ‘Jerks’ was first applied.”
“When I told him about the few professors of religion [in Texas, Joseph Brown] became greatly excited and had the jerks…. I told him that if he did not stop his whooping that I would get in the other bed so he promised to be quiet but we quit the subject of religion in the new settlement….”
“[O]ccasionally I attended [revival meetings in 1817], & witnessed the disorders of Jerking, dancing, swooning….”
“In those remarkable bodily affections, called the jerks, which appeared in religious meetings some years ago, the nervous irregularity was commonly produced by the sight of other persons thus affected; and if in some instances without the sight, yet by having the imagination strongly impressed by hearing of such things….”
“One woman took what used to be called in Tennessee the barking exercise. This was something I never witnessed before, and something that I am not prepared to account for on any principal.”
