“A strange and unknown Nervous Affection, or Disease, made its appearance, in a variety of forms, in different parts of the Counties of Knox and Blount…. [It] was termed; ‘the Jerks.'”
![Newspaper Article from the [Richmond] Virginia Argus (October 24, 1804)](https://blog.richmond.edu/jerkshistory/files/2018/02/VirginiaArgus1804-1080.jpg)
“There is one species of these ‘religious exercises’ which are certainly involuntary, and they have spread from the camp and other religious meetings, in an alarming manner. These are called ‘the jerks.'”
“I made a pause, then exclaimed, at the top of my voice, ‘Do you leave off jerking, if you can.’ It was thought more than five hundred commenced jumping, shouting, and jerking. There was no more preaching that day….”
“[The Jerks consist] in a sudden inclination, or reclining, of the shoulders, and is so quick, that the head appears to move too slow for the shoulders…. This is common to both sexes, but with this difference, that men seldom have more than one jerk…; whereas, a woman will frequently continue a repetition of that motion…for ten or fifteen minutes, reclining backwards as far as her feet, or some other obstacle will permit her, and bending so far forwards, as almost to touch the floor with her head….”
“I suppose there are but few individuals in the United States, who have not at least heard of the unparalleled blaze of enthusiastic religion which burst forth in the western country about the year 1800…. It was under these circumstances that some found themselves unable by voluntary efforts to suppress the contraction of their muscles….”
